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Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana

Basilica San Lorenzo

Chapel of the Princes

Michelangelo's New Sacristy

The Medici Chapels form part of a monumental complex developed over almost two centuries in close connection with the adjoining church of S. Lorenzo, considered the "official" church of the Medici. Behind the church of San Lorenzo, the Medici Chapels Museum consists of the Medici Crypt, the Chapel of the Princes and Michelangelo's New Sacristy.

Chapel of the Princes

Michelangelo's New Sacristy

At the wishes of the Medici popes, Leo X and Clement VII, Michelangelo worked to decorate the New Sacristy between 1520 and 1534, in successive stages.

From the Crypt, stairs

lead up to the Chapel of Princes, a

grand mausoleum

for the Medici grand dukes. Along with the sculptural and architectural decorations, the museum displays the Treasure of

the San Lorenzo Basilica:

reliquaries and liturgical

objects, great examples of Renaissance and Baroque

goldsmiths art.

The New Sacristy was conceived from the very beginning as a funerary chapel for the Medici family. It was commissioned by Cardinal Giulio de' Medici and Pope Leo X.

Michelangelo began work on it in 1521, and had already completed the vault by 1524, but the expulsion of the Medici family in 1527 and the siege of Florence caused work to slow down.

It was the first essay in architecture (1521–24) of Michelangelo, who also designed its monuments dedicated to certain members of the Medici family, with sculptural figures

Michelangelo left Florence in 1534 for the last time causing the project to be left incomplete; the artist had only managed to finish two of the tombs, the Tomb of Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino, and the Tomb of Giuliano, Duke of Nemours.

Though it was vaulted over by 1524, the ambitious projects of its sculpture and the intervention of events, such as the temporary exile of the Medici (1527), the death of Giulio, now Pope Clement VII and the permanent departure of Michelangelo for Rome in 1534, meant that Michelangelo never finished it.

Tomb of Lorenzo Duke of Urbino with symbolical figures: Dawn and Dusk

Though most of the statues had been carved by the time of Michelangelo's departure, they had not been put in place, being left in disarray across the chapel, and later installed by Niccolò Tribolo in 1545.

Tomb of Lorenzo Duke of Urbino: Dawn

Tomb of Lorenzo Duke of Urbino with symbolical figures: Dawn and Dusk

When Michelangelo moved to Rome, the sacristy was unfinished, although the architecture and sculpture were almost ready. By order of Cosimo I, Giorgio Vasari and Bartolomeo Ammannati finished the work by 1555.

Tomb of Lorenzo Duke of Urbino: Dawn

There were intended to be four Medici tombs, but those of Lorenzo the Magnificent and his brother Giuliano (modestly buried beneath the altar at the entrance wall) were never begun. The result is that the two magnificent existing tombs are those of comparatively insignificant Medici: Lorenzo di Piero, Duke of Urbino and Giuliano di Lorenzo, Duke of Nemours.

Tomb of Lorenzo Duke of Urbino: Dawn

Lorenzo II Duke of Urbino (1492–1519)

In 1513, Pope Leo X installed his

nephew, Piero's son, Lorenzo II

("Duke of Urbino") as the new ruler of

Florence at the ripe old age of 21.

Lorenzo II was dead of syphilis by

1519

Tomb of Lorenzo Duke of Urbino: Twilight

Lorenzo II Duke of Urbino

The most significant things he accomplished were (a) to have a local noted political thinker named Niccolò Machiavelli dedicate to him his new treatise on how to govern, titled "The Prince;" and (b) to have a tomb in the Medici Chapels decorated by Michelangelo

Tomb of Giuliano, Duke of Nemours with symbolical figures: Day and Night

Tomb of Giuliano, Duke of Nemours

Tomb of Giuliano, Duke of Nemours: The Night

Giuliano di Lorenzo de' Medici (12 March 1479 – 17 March 1516) was an Italian nobleman, one of three sons of Lorenzo the Magnificent

Tomb of Giuliano, Duke of

Nemours: The Day

Giuliano reigned at Florence from 1512 to 1516

Tomb of Giuliano, Duke of Nemours with symbolical figures: Day and Night

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Tomb of Giuliano, Duke of Nemours with symbolical figures: Day and Night

Tomb of Giuliano, Duke

of Nemours: the Night

Tomb of Giuliano, Duke

of Nemours: the Night

Tomb of Giuliano, Duke of Nemours

His portrait, painted in Rome by Raphael, shows Rome's Castel Sant'Angelo behind a curtain. (A studio version is at the Metropolitan Museum.)

Tomb of Lorenzo the Magnificent

and his brother Giuliano

Madonna and Child; they are

flanked by statues of

Saints Cosma and Damian (protectors of the Medici), executed

respectively by Montorsoli and Baccio da

Montelupo, both of whom were pupils of Michelangelo.

Flanked by St Cosimo and St Damian, the Virgin forms the spiritual centre of the Medici Chapel; the eyes of Lorenzo and Giuliano de' Medici are turned towards her. Like the first Madonna carved by Michelangelo (a relief in the Casa Buonarroti, Florence), she is suckling her child, who clings to her strongly. The dynamic interlocking spirals in space of the two figures suggest a different order of movement than that visible in the other figures, and it has been suggested that the group was originally intended for one of the earlier versions of the tomb of Julius II, and was later employed in the Medici Chapel.

Anna Maria Luisa de' Medici (11 August 1667 – 18 February 1743) was the last scion of the House of Medici. A patron of the arts, she bequeathed the Medici's large art collection, including the contents of the Uffizi, Palazzo Pitti and the Medicean villas, which she inherited upon her brother Gian Gastone's death in 1737, and her Palatine treasures to the Tuscan state, on the condition that no part of it could be removed from "the Capital of the grand ducal State....[and from] the succession of His Serene Grand Duke."Her remains were interred in the Medicean necropolis, the Basilica of San Lorenzo, Florence, which she helped complete.

The museums of the Uffizi, the Pitti Palace, and the Bargello are just the beginning of the artistic legacy Anna Maria created for Florence. She alone was probably the single greatest progenitor of the city's current status as one of the world’s greatest tourist and artistic Meccas

The Crypt

Her tomb is in the crypt. Almost fifty lesser members of the family are buried in the crypt, designed by Bernardo Buontalenti.

Statue in The CryptStatue in Palazzo Pitti

Anna Maria Luisa (1667-1743),

Anna Maria Luisa's single most enduring act was the Family Pact. It ensured that all the Medicean art and treasures collected over nearly three centuries of political ascendancy remained in Florence.

Statue of Anna Maria Luisa de' Medici, near Medici Chapel, Florence

Cynthia Miller Lawrence, an American art-historian, argues that Anna Maria Luisa thus provisioned for Tuscany's future economy through tourism. Sixteen years after her death, the Uffizi Gallery, built by Cosimo the Great, the founder of the Grand Duchy, was made open to public viewing

Sound: Alessandro Marcello ~ Oboe Concerto in D minor II. Adagio III.Presto ~(Albrecht Mayer)

Text and pictures: Internet

Copyright: All the images belong to their authors

Presentation: Sanda Foişoreanu

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