After five hundred years Florence is back to talking about completing the facade of the basilica of San Lorenzo. The large, central Renaissance church designed by Filippo Brunelleschi is still without a monumental facade, although there is a specific project designed by Michelangelo Buonarroti. Mayor Matteo Renzi announced the city administration's intention to implement Michelangelo's project and wants his fellow citizens to make the final decision, through a referendum.

For this reason studioDIM associati, a Florentine firm among the most respected in Europe in the field of architectural rendering, has chosen to share on its website a study carried out in 2009 just on the design of the facade for San Lorenzo in Firenze by Michelangelo. An animation and a series of highly realistic images show the basilica as if its facade had been finished.

The architectural practice, devoted exclusively to digital visualization since 1995, wants to provide the Florentines with a means of knowledge of the project and the possibility of evaluating, seeing it in advance, the final aspect of the church in case of completion. "We're used to visualizing projects located all over the world, but we carry out with a specific passion any work centered on Florence and the subject of Michelangelo and his facade for San Lorenzo was extraordinarily compelling. We felt we had to share with the town the result of our work, considering the delicacy of the operation and the lively debate that will be going on for a long while between those who favor it and those who don't." said one of the founders of the firm.

Further information in English on 3D rendering and studioDIM is available here.