Medici Chapel
Medici Chapel
art site
Piazza di Madonna degli Aldobrandini, 50123 Firenze, Italia
Show on map
This is the mausoleum of the Medici dynasty. This complex, that took centuries to complete, was built to reflect the family’s greatness and comprises several, clearly distinct spaces. From the dark crypt, that also houses the treasure of St. Lawrence, we go up to the majestic Chapel of the Princes built between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (Nigetti, Ruggeri). This large, octagonal room is sumptuously clad in semiprecious stone inlays (marble, granite, porphyry, quartz, lapis lazuli, etc.) made by the Opificio delle Pietre Dure that was established in 1588. In the lateral niches are the tombs of the Medici Grand Dukes. Each tomb is surmounted by the name of the deceased and in two cases there are stately bronze statues. Next to the Chapel is the smaller, but artistically much more significant, New Sacristy designed by Michelangelo (the “Old” Sacristy had been designed by Brunelleschi about one hundred years before). This entire proto-Mannerist area was the child of the great artist: sculpture and architecture combine into a harmonious ensemble, filled with symbols that are quite explicit and profound references to time, life and death. Michelangelo worked on the New Sacristy for fourteen years, a period that coincided partly with the dramatic siege of 1530. He alone carved the tombs of Giuliano Duke of Nemours and Lorenzo Duke of Urbino with their famous allegorical statues of Day and Night, Dawn and Dusk). On the unfinished tomb of Lorenzo the Magnificent and Giuliano de’ Medici the magnificent Virgin and Child by the master is placed between effigies of Saints Cosmas and Damian – the protectors of the Medici family – bMichelangelo’s pupils.
art site
Piazza di Madonna degli Aldobrandini, 50123 Firenze, Italia
Show on map
This is the mausoleum of the Medici dynasty. This complex, that took centuries to complete, was built to reflect the family’s greatness and comprises several, clearly distinct spaces. From the dark crypt, that also houses the treasure of St. Lawrence, we go up to the majestic Chapel of the Princes built between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (Nigetti, Ruggeri). This large, octagonal room is sumptuously clad in semiprecious stone inlays (marble, granite, porphyry, quartz, lapis lazuli, etc.) made by the Opificio delle Pietre Dure that was established in 1588. In the lateral niches are the tombs of the Medici Grand Dukes. Each tomb is surmounted by the name of the deceased and in two cases there are stately bronze statues. Next to the Chapel is the smaller, but artistically much more significant, New Sacristy designed by Michelangelo (the “Old” Sacristy had been designed by Brunelleschi about one hundred years before). This entire proto-Mannerist area was the child of the great artist: sculpture and architecture combine into a harmonious ensemble, filled with symbols that are quite explicit and profound references to time, life and death. Michelangelo worked on the New Sacristy for fourteen years, a period that coincided partly with the dramatic siege of 1530. He alone carved the tombs of Giuliano Duke of Nemours and Lorenzo Duke of Urbino with their famous allegorical statues of Day and Night, Dawn and Dusk). On the unfinished tomb of Lorenzo the Magnificent and Giuliano de’ Medici the magnificent Virgin and Child by the master is placed between effigies of Saints Cosmas and Damian – the protectors of the Medici family – bMichelangelo’s pupils.