A large tapestry that has spent roughly a century out of public view is beginning a slow return to visibility in Florence. On 19 October, The Banquet of Psyche, a 17th-century work woven from wool and silk, left the Museo Nazionale del Bargello for the first time in living memory and travelled to the conservation laboratory of the Opificio delle Pietre Dure, housed in the historic Palazzo Vecchio nearby.

Moving the piece was itself a delicate operation. Measuring 4.20 by 3.25 metres, the fragile textile had to be carefully rolled, secured in a specially designed harness and carried on foot through the city to the laboratory. There, a team of specialists will spend approximately two and a half years studying and treating it before it can go back on display.

The project is supported by a 100,000 euro donation from Fondazione Il Bargello, made through Italy's Art Bonus scheme, which encourages private support for public cultural heritage. For the museum, the work is about more than repairing an old textile. It is an opportunity to recover a piece of its collection that has largely slipped from public awareness and to open up new research into how it was made.

The tapestry tells the mythological story of Cupid and Psyche, and its return to the conservation workshop continues a long Florentine tradition of textile care in the Palazzo Vecchio. When the restoration is complete, the Bargello expects to be able to show a work that most visitors will never have seen, restored to a condition fit for public display after decades in storage.