I’m a fan of videos that show a famous painting being moved or under the working hands of restorers. We’re so used to seeing them hanging in a gallery, either “in person” or in photographs in Art History textbooks or web pages. The sight of these kinds of close encounters can be mesmerizing. I sometimes catch myself feeling a little envious of the technicians for having this kind of physical contact with one of civilization’s most iconic images. Once I unwittingly leaned a little too close to a painting for close inspection, and embarrassed myself by setting off an alarm.

Here, workers of the Uffizi Gallery  take down Michelangelo’s “Holy Family” from Room 25 to move it to more spacious and comfortable digs in the gallery. Since 1952 the painting has been displayed in room 25, quarters that have turned out to be rather cramped at times, a situation I…