Cappelle Medicee: Michelangelo, undertaker to a dynasty
Michelangelo built the room, carved the tombs and reclined four figures of Time on them. The Medici asked for a mausoleum. They got a meditation on mortality no dynasty deserved.
Michelangelo got the commission in 1520: a funerary chapel in San Lorenzo for the Medici dukes. He answered as architect and sculptor at once, designing a gray-and-white room that tightens Brunelleschi’s calm into something restless, then reclining four marble allegories on the sarcophagi - Dawn and Dusk for Lorenzo duke of Urbino, Day and Night for Giuliano duke of Nemours. Time devours. The dukes above sit idealised, not portrayed, when told they looked nothing like the men, Michelangelo replied that in a thousand years no one would know the difference. He left for Rome in 1534 with the work unfinished, which somehow completes it.
The Princes’ octagon and the secret room
The later Cappella dei Principi is the counterweight: a colossal octagon sheathed floor to dome in dark inlaid marbles and semi-precious stone, begun in 1604 to entomb the grand dukes with imperial pomp. It is power made geology, some find it magnificent, some find it suffocating, and both readings are correct. Below, a small chamber discovered in 1975 hides charcoal wall drawings attributed to Michelangelo, sketched, the theory goes, while he hid from Medici anger after the 1530 siege. Access is limited and booked separately.
Medici Chapel (Cappelle medicee), Florence · photo Dimitris Kamaras from Athens, Greece · CC BY 2.0 · via Wikimedia Commons
Practical
The Chapels are a state museum with their own entrance behind San Lorenzo, separate from the basilica ticket. Book ahead in season and go early. The Sagrestia Nuova is small and empties of meaning when crowded. Pair with Santa Maria Novella and the Mercato Centrale next door. Our two-day Florence plan slots it all together.
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