The basilica of San Lorenzo is one of the main Catholic places of worship in Florence, located in the homonymous square in the historic center of the city. It is one of the churches that vie for the title of oldest in the city and has the dignity of a minor basilica. The San Lorenzo market is held near the church.
According to tradition, it was founded during the 4th century on a
hill near the course (later diverted) of the Mugnone, thanks to the
donation of Giuliana, a matron of Jewish origin. Already in 393 it was
consecrated as the city cathedral to the martyr Lorenzo, in the presence
of Saint Ambrose and Saint Zenobius. The area at the time was just
outside the walls, like most of the sites of early Christian basilicas
in Roman cities.
The monticulus Sancti Laurentii is now hidden by
the steps which, in their current arrangement, date back to 1912-1913.
Almost nothing remains of the early church. Fragmentary archaeological
traces, which cannot be organically connected, came to light here and
there under the floor of the crypt during excavations in the sixties and
seventies of the twentieth century. Remains of houses and shops built
close to the church were found in the works of 1912-1913.
Middle
Ages
For three hundred years, San Lorenzo was the cathedral of
Florence, before ceding its status to Santa Reparata, when the remains
of the bishop of Florence, San Zenobi, were solemnly transferred.
Matilde di Canossa (died in 1115), duchess of Tuscany, seems to have
had her residence near San Lorenzo, and from here she managed to
guarantee a certain harmony between the citizens' parties of the time.
The church was enlarged and reconsecrated for the first time in
1059, on the initiative of Bishop Gherardo of Burgundy, when he became
pope with the name of Niccolò II; on that occasion, it was also equipped
with a chapter of canons, which gave impetus to the construction of some
rooms, such as the cloister next to the church.
Medici phase
A
new expansion was approved by the canons at the beginning of the 15th
century, but the works initially proceeded very slowly. In 1418 the
prior Matteo Dolfini obtained permission from the Signoria to demolish
some houses to enlarge the transept of the church and on 10 August 1421
he celebrated a solemn ceremony to bless the beginning of the works.
Among the lenders was the very wealthy banker Giovanni di Bicci de'
Medici, who lived in the neighborhood, and who probably named the
architect who was already working on his chapel, today's Old Sacristy,
namely Filippo Brunelleschi. The reconstruction of the entire church was
a project that had to mature at a later time, probably after 1421, when
Dolfini died. The beginning of Brunelleschi's intervention is generally
placed in that year.
While the sacristy was finished in 1428 (and
in 1429 the solemn funeral of Giovanni de' Medici was celebrated there),
the works on the church had instead progressed little and were
practically blocked. After 1441, Cosimo de' Medici, son of Giovanni,
took almost the entire responsibility for the reconstruction, but
progress continued to be slow, marked by uncertainties and
interruptions. In this second phase, the direction of the works probably
passed to Michelozzo, architect of the nearby Palazzo Medici and heir to
numerous construction sites started by Brunelleschi, now elderly and
concentrated on other works.
From 1457 Antonio Manetti Ciaccheri
was in charge of the construction site and in 1461, when the work was
almost completed, the high altar was consecrated. Three years later
Cosimo de' Medici died and was buried in an underground crypt, placed in
a pillar exactly below the central altar.
Since then, San Lorenzo
became the burial place of the members of the Medici family, a tradition
that continued, with some exceptions, until the grand dukes and the
extinction of the lineage. This custom was also taken up, by analogy, by
the successive members of the Lorraine dynasty, using the basement of
the basilica for their own burials.
The facade of the church had
remained unfinished: Pope Leo X, Medici, after a competition in which
great artists such as Raphael and Giuliano da Sangallo participated,
gave Michelangelo the task of designing one in 1518. The artist made a
wooden model of a facade classic and proportionate, but the work was
still not completed, due to technical and financial problems that had
already arisen from the procurement of materials. A few years later,
Michelangelo's project for San Lorenzo was used in the construction of
the facade of the basilica of San Bernardino in L'Aquila by Cola
dell'Amatrice.
Leo X also commissioned the New Sacristy to the
great artist, to preserve the sepulchres of the two scions of the Medici
family, Lorenzo Duke of Urbino and Giuliano Duke of Nemours, who had
both died in their thirties to the great consternation of the pope who
was so used for their claim. The work was carried out several times,
including also the tombs of Lorenzo the Magnificent and his brother
Giuliano, but with great slowness and a gradual resizing of the
projects, until, cornered for his anti-Medici support for the Florentine
Republic, Michelangelo bartered a safe conduct with a partial conclusion
of the work.
Clement VII, the other Medici pope, also did not
fail to enrich the complex of San Lorenzo, commissioning Michelangelo to
build the Laurentian Library, while inside the church he had the balcony
built on the counter-facade to a project by the same artist for the
display of the relics .
The vast chapel of the Princes, separate,
behind the high altar, was a grandiose undertaking begun in the time of
Ferdinand I; the Medici were still paying for it when the last member,
Anna Maria Luisa de' Medici, died in 1743.
The small bell tower
dates back to 1740, the work of Ferdinando Ruggieri.
The last of
the dynasty, Anna Maria Ludovica, commissioned the last important work
in the basilica: the decoration of the dome with the Glory of the
Florentine saints by the painter Vincenzo Meucci (1742), a meager
compensation however compared to the destruction of the frescoes by
Pontormo in the choir, perpetrated in those same years.
With the nineteenth-century suppression of religious institutions,
the library was juridically separated from the rest of the complex and
the State-owned Museum of the Medici Chapels was created. In 1907, the
Opera Medicea Laurenziana was established for the management and
safeguarding of the basilica. Since 1 March 2001, to access the church,
the payment of a ticket that goes to the Laurentian Opera is required.
Due to the consequences of the history of the last two centuries, the
Laurentian complex, one of the most important in all of Florence, today
presents itself with a fragmentary image, corresponding to the different
uses of the environments: religious, tourist, museum, librarian. To
visit the complex, except for the main cloister, with free admission,
and the areas reserved for the religious (not accessible), today you
have to buy three different tickets, which can be used at different
visiting times: one for the basilica, the Old Sacristy and the crypt,
one for the chapel of the Princes and the New Sacristy, and finally one
for the monumental rooms of the Laurentian Library, mostly open only on
the occasion of regular temporary exhibitions.
In July 2011 the
then mayor Matteo Renzi proposed to complete the facade of the church
with Michelangelo's project of 1515, to be carried out for the five
hundredth anniversary, 2015. The proposal was based on the
nineteenth-century buildings of two of the main Florentine churches:
Santa Croce, whose facade was built between 1853 and 1863, and Santa
Maria del Fiore, built between 1871 and 1887. The initiative, which pass
by a popular referendum, was not followed up.
The facade of San Lorenzo is sloping gabled, with exposed rough stone
on which three arched portals open. The right side is in smooth stone,
decorated with an order of blind arches and pilasters. On this side you
can also see the exterior of Michelangelo's New Sacristy, equipped with
a small dome covered in scales, topped by a lantern with marble columns.
Adjacent to the New Sacristy stands the 54-metre-high bell tower; it
houses three large bells, of which the two largest were donated in 1740
by Gian Gastone de' Medici, while the smaller bell was added by the Ecat
foundries of Mondovì (CN) in 2019, following the restorations that they
ended that year.
High up, above the tiburium, is the large dome
of the chapel of the Princes, covered by roof tiles.
On the back
of the church (with access from the back onto Piazza Madonna degli
Aldobrandini) opens the grandiose chapel of the Princes, with its large
dome which is the second largest in Florence after that of the
cathedral.
The church has a Latin cross plan with three naves, with side chapels
along the lateral naves and the transept. At the intersection of the
arms is a dome. The layout, as in other works by Brunelleschi, is
inspired by other works of the medieval Florentine tradition, such as
Santa Croce, Santa Maria Novella or Santa Trinita, but starting from
these models Brunelleschi took inspiration for something more rigorous,
with revolutionary results . The fundamental innovation lies in the
organization of the spaces along the median axis by applying a module
(both in plan and elevation), corresponding to the size of a square bay,
with a base of 11 Florentine arms, approximately the same as the Spedale
degli Innocenti (10 Florentine arms), built from 1419. The use of the
regular module, with the consequent rhythmic repetition of the
architectural elements, defines a perspective scanning of great clarity
and suggestion. The two lateral naves have been defined as the
symmetrical development of the loggia of the hospital, applied for the
first time inside a church: here too, in fact, the use of the square
span and the ribbed vault generates the sensation of a space marked as a
regular series of imaginary cubes surmounted by hemispheres.
The
side walls are decorated with pilasters which frame the round arches of
the chapels. However, the latter are not proportionate to the module and
it is thought that they are a tampering with Brunelleschi's original
project, implemented at least after his death (1446). Furthermore, the
rationality of the plan in the cross-foot does not find a counterpart of
analogous lucidity in the transept, since here probably Brunelleschi had
to adapt to the foundations already started by Dolfini. On the basis of
surveys, studies of the foundations, archival investigations and a
drawing by Giuliano da Sangallo from the beginning of the 15th century,
it has been reconstructed that the original project should have
envisaged a series of chapels with a square plan (instead of the
rectangular one as they are now). , with ribbed vault and apse on the
back wall, which also continued on the counter-façade and at the ends of
the transept and the presbytery, where pairs of symmetrical chapels were
planned at each end: a revolutionary model, which the architect tried to
apply years later , with more coherent results, in the basilica of Santo
Spirito.
Despite the alterations, the basilica still conveys a
sense of rational conception of space, underlined by the load-bearing
architectural members in pietra serena, which stands out against the
white plaster according to the most recognizable Brunelleschian style.
The interior is extremely bright, thanks to the series of arched
windows running along the clarestory. The columns rest on short plinths,
have smooth shafts and end in the innovative "Brunelleschi's nut",
composed of the Corinthian capital and a cubic pulvinus, composed of a
frieze with reliefs of angelic protomes and grills of San Lorenzo. The
arches of the nave are rounded, surmounted by a protruding cornice. The
ceiling of the central nave is decorated with lacunars, with gilded
rosettes on a white background, but Brunelleschi's project included a
barrel vault, also in the transept, while the lateral naves are covered
by ribbed vaults. Each side chapel is raised by three steps, flanked by
pilasters and surmounted by a round arch, which connects to the cornice
with a corbel.
The decorations of the architectural elements of the basilica, with
cherubs and plant motifs, are the work of the workshops of Antonio and
Tommaso Rossellino, with the help of Pagno di Lapo Portigiani (second
half of the 15th century).
The internal facade is made up of the
Tribune of Michelangelo's relics (1531-1532), surmounted in the 19th
century by a large shield with the Savoyard cross in grisaille.
In an anticlockwise direction, from right to left, the chapels of the
right aisle are first encountered. In the first is the Martyrdom of San
Sebastiano dell'Empoli, in the second the Marriage of the Virgin (1523),
a masterpiece of Tuscan mannerism by Rosso Fiorentino, in which Mary and
Joseph are the two young actors in a joyful party populated by various
guests, within an unconventional composition and with a particularly
lively color application. On the left wall of this chapel there is also
the tombstone of the musician Francesco Landini (1397), one of the
founders of Ars Nova. In the third chapel San Lorenzo and the souls in
Purgatory by Niccolò Lapi, in the fourth the Assumption by Michele di
Ridolfo del Ghirlandaio. The fifth has no important works, the sixth the
Adoration of the Magi by Girolamo Macchietti, the seventh also has no
decorations worthy of note. On the wall bordering the transept is the
ciborium of the Sacrament by Desiderio da Settignano (about 1460), a
much copied and highly quoted work, which stands out for its delicacy.
It has a Pietà at the base, surmounted by two candlestick-holding
angels; in the centre, the actual ciborium, framed by a perspective
glimpse of a church populated by adoring angels; finally, at the top, a
blessing Child Jesus, the prototype of a subject that was widely
circulated.
In front of it is the Pulpit of the Resurrection,
twin of the Pulpit of the Passion on the other side. Born as simple
panels, later assembled in their current form, they are Donatello's last
works, in which his unconventional and revolutionary spirit to the
extreme is captured, carried forward in a cultural climate now
extraneous to his research, after his long absence in the city on his
return from Padua. They were sculpted in the “sciacciato” style with the
help of Bertoldo di Giovanni and Bartolomeo Bellano around 1460. The
pulpit on the right shows the Descent into hell, the Resurrection and
the Ascension, in a single scene divided by symbolic "doors", while
other isolated episodes are the Marys at the sepulchre, Pentecost and
the Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence. In the episodes judged to be
autographs, one perceives an intense drama, an unscrupulous use of space
and a very strong expressiveness, accentuated by an often rough finish,
of absolute modernity. San Luca and the mocking Christ are wooden works
from 1616 and 1634 treated in imitation of bronze and added only after
reassembly. On the frieze, within a medallion supported by two centaurs,
is the artist's signature.
The right chapel of the right transept contains a fragment of an
ancient sarcophagus, already used as a cover for the tomb of Blessed
Niccolò Stenone (today on the opposite side, in a seventeenth-century
monument), above which is a fresco with a delicate Virgin, by Niccolò of
Thomas; at the altar a dramatic, multi-material Crucifix by Antonio del
Pollaiolo, with the body in cork wood, the loincloth in pinstriped
canvas and the hair in tow mixed with stucco. The polychrome stained
glass window with Niccolò Stenone is the work of 1996 by Carlo Alberto
Vanalesta.
The chapel at the end of the transept, dedicated to
the Blessed Sacrament, has a painting of San Zanobi by Fabrizio Boschi
(late 16th century), and the funeral monument of Carolina of Saxony,
first wife of Grand Duke Leopold II of Tuscany, who died in 1832. It is
a work carried out by the Pietre Dure factory in Florentine commission
in 1857. On the right wall Nativity with Saints Mark and Francis from
the Ghirlandaio workshop (Master of the Borghese Tondo, end of the 15th
century).
The first chapel from the right contains two funeral monuments of
Leopoldo Costoli on the walls and on the altar an altarpiece from the
second half of the eighteenth century with Sant'Anna educating the
Virgin. The following chapel has no major decorations.
The dome
at the intersection of the arms is decorated by the Glory of the
Florentine saints, a large fresco by Vincenzo Meucci from 1742,
commissioned by the Electress Palatine. in the spandrels, Four Fathers
of the Church by the same author.
The main altar is in
semi-precious stones, designed by Gaspare Maria Paoletti in 1787,
surmounted by a marble Crucifix attributed to Valerio Cioli. The cropped
shape of the choir, which was once decorated with frescoes by Pontormo,
dates back to the arrangement made by Gaetano Baccani in 1860 after the
partial demolition in the eighteenth century. In front of the altar, a
bronze grate among the geometric designs of the floor (in polychrome
marble, porphyry and serpentine that draw Medici coats of arms) marks
the burial place in the underlying crypt of Cosimo de' Medici, pater
patriae. It is an absolutely exceptional location for a civil burial,
which follows that of the tombs of saints or of the most precious
relics, and which bears witness to the extraordinary prestige of the
Medici dynasty in the Laurentian basilica.
In the next chapel a
glass case contains a wooden Madonna and Child attributed to Giovanni
Fetti and datable to after 1382. On the right wall San Lorenzo between
Saints Stefano and Leonardo attributed to Raffaellino del Garbo, and on
the left the Nativity with saints Giuliano and Francesco from the school
of Ghirlandaio and from the early sixteenth century.
In the last
chapel, an altarpiece from the Ghirlandaio workshop (Sant'Antonio Abate
enthroned between the saints Lorenzo and Giuliano and in the predella
Stories of the three saints) and a monument by Giovanni Duprè dedicated
to Berta Moltke Withfield, from 1864.
Built by Michelangelo several times between 1521 and 1534, it is part
of the Medici project to have a worthy burial for the members of the
family, which, in the meantime, was gradually rising in rank thanks
above all to the election to the papal throne of Leo X and the arrival
of the first ducal titles.
Michelangelo started from the same
plan as Brunelleschi's Sacristy and built the new Sacristy at the right
end of the transept, dividing the space into more complex shapes, with
triumphal arches that open onto some sort of apses. Recessed into the
two side walls, he created monumental tombs dedicated to Giuliano Duke
of Nemours and his nephew Lorenzo Duke of Urbino, for which he sculpted
three sculptures each: the Allegories of Time, placed above the tombs,
and the portraits of the Dukes above. For the tomb of Giuliano de'
Medici, seated in a proud posture, he chose Day and Night; for that of
Lorenzo, in a melancholy and pensive pose, the Dusk and the Dawn.
Both statues look towards the center of the chapel where
Michelangelo created and placed a Madonna with Jesus on her lap. Turning
their gaze to the sacred representation, the dukes express the religious
inclinations of the artist, according to whom, when earthly glories
pass, only spirituality and religion can give relief to men's anxieties.
The kit is completed by the statues of Saints Cosma and Damiano, works
by students of Michelangelo.
Lorenzo the Magnificent and his
brother Giuliano de' Medici are also buried under the altar, for whom
there was never time to build a monumental tomb.
The sumptuous octagonal room is 28 meters wide and is surmounted by
the dome of San Lorenzo, the second most majestic in the city after that
of Brunelleschi.
It was commissioned by Ferdinando I to the
architect Matteo Nigetti in 1604, apparently based on a design by Don
Giovanni de' Medici, brother of the same grand duke. Bernardo
Buontalenti also took part in the project.
The inlays that
decorate the entire surface of the chapel were created with dark marbles
and semi-precious stones, which create a dazzling scenographic effect.
For the realization of this work, the Opificio delle Pietre Dure was
specially created as a laboratory for the art of the so-called
Florentine salesman. In the plinth, where the coats of arms of the
sixteen Tuscan cities faithful to the Medici family are reproduced,
semi-precious stones, mother-of-pearl, lapis lazuli and coral were used.
The eight niches should have housed the statues of all the grand
dukes, even if only those for Ferdinand I and Ferdinand II were later
made, both works by Pietro Tacca, executed between 1626 and 1642.
In the center of the atrium, in the intentions of the patrons, the
Holy Sepulcher was to be located, but the various attempts to buy or
steal it in Jerusalem failed.
The sarcophagi are actually empty
cenotaphs and the real remains of the grand dukes and their families up
to Anna Maria Luisa de' Medici (last heir of the dynasty, 1667-1743) are
kept in simple niches hidden behind the walls.
A masterpiece of the fifteenth century, it was the first part of San
Lorenzo to be completed by Brunelleschi, on behalf of the Medici who
wanted to build their own mausoleum (1421-1428) and is located on the
left side of the transept.
The chapel, dedicated to San Giovanni
Evangelista, is structured as a cubic space, covered by a hemispherical
umbrella dome, and is divided into 12 segments by ribs. Brunelleschi
found himself in the position of having to resolve the relationship
between structurally analogous spaces. He juxtaposed two rooms with a
square base, but of different heights: the actual sacristy and the small
altar pouch. The color play of the gray stone and plaster is further
enhanced by the presence of painted stucco: the frieze with Cherubim and
seraphim, the roundels of the Evangelists on the walls and those with
the Stories of St. John the Evangelist in the spandrels of the dome,
works by Donatello , author also of the bronze door knockers, with the
Saints, Martyrs, Apostles and Fathers of the Church. The violent
chromaticism and exaggerated experimentalism of the works of Donatello,
also a protégé of the Medici, gave rise to a strong disagreement between
the sculptor and Brunelleschi, who accused him of wanting to divert
attention from the architectural proportions of the chapel. The
disagreement between two artists, who had been a very close couple for
years, then led to the exclusion of Donatello from the decoration of
other Brunelleschi's works such as, for example, the Pazzi chapel.
The perfect fusion between the rigor of the architecture and the
variety of the plastic decoration makes it "one of the most complete and
coherent creations of the early Florentine Renaissance".
The
frescoes in the vault of the dome in the apse depict the cosmological
situation of the Sun, the Moon, the five planets and the constellations,
as they appeared over Florence on the night of July 4, 1442. It is
assumed that the celestial vault was painted by the eclectic
painter-decorator Giuliano d'Arrigo, known as Pesello. An autograph work
by Verrocchio is the funeral monument to Giovanni (1421-1463) and Piero
de' Medici, sons of Cosimo the Elder, commissioned in 1472 by Piero's
sons, Lorenzo the Magnificent and Giuliano de' Medici. The bust of San
Lorenzo is attributed to Desiderio da Settignano. In the centre, under
the marble table with circular porphyry inlays, is the tomb of Giovanni
di Bicci de' Medici and Piccarda Bueri by Andrea Cavalcanti (1434).
On the left wall of the chapel, in an opening decorated with a
bronze grate, is the funeral monument to Piero and Giovanni de' Medici,
by Verrocchio (1472), an extremely original work in marble, bronze and
sandstone, which inspired numerous creations of the Florentine
Renaissance.
The chapel at the head of the left transept is called "dei Santi
Cosma e Damiano" or "delle Reliquie". Closely connected to the Medici
patronage of the nearby Old Sacristy, it contains the wooden cabinets
where the numerous reliquaries supplied to the basilica are kept. On the
entrance arch two frescoes attributed to Poccetti, the Saints Cosma and
Damiano and San Carlo Borromeo and another prelate (dated 1611). The
altar is decorated with a fourteenth-century Madonna and Child
(attributed to the eponymous Master of the Madonna of San Lorenzo, a
follower of the Master of Santa Cecilia), framed by a canvas with Saints
Lorenzo, Ambrogio and Zenobius by Francesco Conti (1714). On the altar
is an inscription from 1714 which commemorates Cosimo III de' Medici as
"Etruscorum Rex".
The Martelli chapel follows on the left. Apart
from the neo-Renaissance monument to Donatello (by Dario Guidotti and
Raffaello Romanelli, 1896), dedicated to the sculptor who is buried in
the crypt, there are two important Renaissance works: the sarcophagus of
the Martelli family (about 1455) by Donatello himself or his workshop ,
simulating a large wicker basket, and the Martelli Annunciation by
Filippo Lippi (about 1450), the first rectangular altarpiece of the
basilica which was later taken as a model for all the others. The
predella with Storie di san Niccolò is perhaps extraneous to the work,
and was created by Lippi with the help of his assistant Francesco
Pesellino. Above the altar is a 15th century polychromed wooden crucifix
and on the left wall the canvas by Giuseppe Nicola Nasini with San
Girolamo and the angel.
The wall of the left aisle near the transept is decorated with a
large fresco with the Martyrdom of San Lorenzo by Agnolo Bronzino
(1565-69), rich in Michelangelo's quotations. In front of it is the
other pulpit by Donatello, that of the Passion, with the masterpiece of
the scene of the Deposition.
On the door that opens onto the
cloister is the choir loft for the organ, already attributed to
Donatello at the beginning of the twentieth century, due to its
undeniable affinities with that of Santa Maria del Fiore, of which it
takes up the architectural scheme and the frieze placed behind small
columns free. Later critics assigned it to workshop workers, due to the
lesser elegance and compositional freedom of the reliefs. It should date
from the 1460s.
In the side chapels, continuing in anticlockwise
order, there is an altarpiece by Pietro Annigoni (Christ and St. Joseph
in the workshop), which, due to the gold background, appears to be an
older work but instead dates back to 1964. The rendering of the scene
between father and son, permeated with familiar recollection, with Saint
Joseph who seems affectionately aware of the role of his son, also
suggested by the wooden plank in the foreground which forms a cross;
follows the Crucifixion of Saint Acazio and his companions by Giovan
Antonio Sogliani; a wooden crucifix of the German school (perhaps by
Paolo Moerich) flanked by two mourners on canvas by Lorenzo Lippi; a
Madonna Enthroned between Saints Lawrence and Zanobi from 1877; the
Crucifixion by Francesco Conti, from San Jacopo Soprarno and documented
in 1709; the Calling of Saint Matthew by Pietro Marchesini (about 1739).
In Bernardo Buontalenti's crypt, about fifty members of the family, including seniors and minors, are buried, while in the upper part, in the large octagonal room surmounted by a dome, there are the monumental cenotaphs (empty tombs) of the grand dukes of Tuscany.
Major organ
The second organ, the more grandiose one, was built in
1864-1865 by the famous organ factory of the Serassi Brothers of Bergamo
at the behest of the Italian government. It is located in the apse, at
the top.
The sumptuous and imposing instrument consists of three
keyboards of seventy keys each and straight pedalboard and 64 registers;
the console is a masterpiece of cabinet-making, with very fine and very
ornate carvings. The transmission system is entirely the original
mechanical one. Following this work placed by Giacomo Locatelli, still
well preserved, King Vittorio Emanuele II appointed Mr. Giacomo Serassi
Knight of the Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus, and granted the firm
the right to adorn the insignia of his Royal coat of arms industrial art
establishment.
Renaissance organ
The oldest organ, located in
Donatello's choir loft, was built in 1502 by Benedetto Advantageni from
Volterra and subsequently enlarged by the Tronci brothers in 1773.
In 1896 Pietro Paoli di Campi Bisenzio remade the bellows and added
four chromatic keys in the first octave and remade the keyboard and
pedalboard.
On the occasion of the sixteenth centenary of the
church (1993-1994), the organ was restored by the organ builder Riccardo
Lorenzini of Montemurlo who restored the original characteristics of the
instrument. The instrument has a keyboard of 47 keys with a short first
octave and a scavezza pedalboard of 14 pedals constantly combined with
the manual.
Choir organ
In the choir, hidden from the main
altar, there is a third pipe organ which was built in 1952 by the
Tamburini company and enlarged in 2007. It has two keyboards of 61 notes
each and a concave-radial pedal of 32. It is electrically driven .
Designed by Brunelleschi, but built after the master's death (1446)
between 1457 and 1460 by his pupil Antonio Manetti, it is the main
cloister of the complex. It has a double loggia, with round arches on
the lower floor and an architrave on the upper floor, and is accessed
from the left side of the facade. In ancient times, the houses of the
canons and the various environments of monastic life were located there.
On the right wall of the entrance portico there is a stucco Madonna
and Child, by Desiderio da Settignano, with a glazed terracotta frame
(1513), today difficult to admire due to the dirty protective glass and
the height of the positioning. On the same side there are numerous
tombstones among which the interesting one placed at the request of Anna
Maria Ludovica de' Medici in order to commemorate the consolidation
works of the complex in 1742. In the right corner towards the transept
of the basilica you enter the Medici Library Laurentian, designed by
Michelangelo, while next to the door is the marble statue of Paolo
Giovio from Como, bishop of Nocera, executed by Francesco da Sangallo
(signed, 1560). From here you can also access the crypt, restructured by
Buontalenti, which houses the tombs of Cosimo the Elder and Donatello.
Further on, a door with a tympanum leads to the chapel of the Chapter of
the Canons, with wooden stalls carved in the late fifteenth century.
Bernardo Cennini (goldsmith and engraver, south transept)
Donatello (north transept)
Francesco Landini (south aisle)
Niccolo
Martelli (north transept)
Cosimo de' Medici (in front of the high
altar, simple slab in the floor)
Cosimo I de' Medici (Chapel of the
Princes)
Cosimo II de' Medici (Chapel of the Princes)
Cosimo III
de' Medici (Chapel of the Princes)
Ferdinando I de' Medici (Chapel of
the Princes)
Ferdinando II de' Medici (Chapel of the Princes)
Ferdinand III of Lorraine (crypt)
Francesco I de' Medici (Chapel of
the Princes)
Giovanni di Bicci de' Medici (Old Sacristy)
Giovanni
di Cosimo de' Medici (Old Sacristy)
Giuliano di Lorenzo de' Medici
(New Sacristy)
Giuliano di Piero de' Medici (New Sacristy)
Lorenzo
the Magnificent (New Sacristy)
Lorenzo Duke of Urbino (New Sacristy)
Maria Anna Carolina of Saxony (north transept)
Piero the Gouty (Old
Sacristy)
Over time, many companies or brotherhoods met in the great basilica
and its annexes (especially in the extensive basements). Among the most
important were:
Company of Sant'Anna dei Palafrenieri
Company of
the Blessed Sacrament of San Lorenzo
Company of the Precious Blood of
Jesus
Company of the Sacred Stigmata of St. Francis of Assisi
Filippo Brunelleschi, Sacrifice of Isaac, now in the Bargello
Lorenzo Ghiberti, Sacrifice of Isaac, now in the Bargello
Fra
Bartolomeo, Pala del Gran Consiglio, now in the San Marco Museum