The Medici chapels, built as a burial place for the Medici family, are today a state museum of Florence, obtained from some areas of the basilica of San Lorenzo.
The environments known today collectively as the "Medici chapels"
were built between the 16th and 17th centuries as an extension of
Brunelleschi's basilica in order to celebrate the Medici family.
Already in 1429, the solemn funeral of Giovanni de' Medici, banker and
benefactor of the sacred building, was celebrated in the sacristy of San
Lorenzo (now known as the "old sacristy"), whose houses were located a
few steps away, at the crossroads between the via Larga (now via Cavour)
and via de' Gori (in the same place the Palazzo Medici by Michelozzo was
later built). In 1464, Cosimo de' Medici, son of Giovanni, the first de
facto lord of Florence, died and was buried in an underground crypt,
placed in a pillar exactly below the central altar of the basilica.
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.
Museumization
The Medici chapels are now a museum, which can be
accessed from the back of the basilica, in Piazza Madonna degli
Aldobrandini.
The two main parts that can be visited are
extensions of the apse of the basilica: the New Sacristy, built by
Michelangelo from 1519 in about a decade, and the large chapel of the
Princes, from the following century, completely covered with marble and
semi-precious stones where the Grand Dukes of Tuscany and their families
are buried; furthermore, some rooms of the crypt (designed by
Buontalenti) under the chapel of the Princes are part of the itinerary,
where the ticket office and the bookshop are located and sometimes
temporary exhibitions are held.
Since 2004, examinations have
been taking place on the remains of the Medici to shed light on some
obscure points of their family history. Among the first unexplained
finds, the body of an unknown newborn, perhaps the illegitimate child of
a family member.
Four hundred years after the death of Ferdinando
I de' Medici (7 February 1609), the Museum of the Medici Chapels has
dedicated an exhibition to him curated by the director Monica Bietti and
A. Giusti. The exhibition touched on two important moments in the life
of the grand duke: his wedding with Christine of Lorraine in 1589 and
the construction of the ciborium in the chapel of the Princes to honor
his predecessors.
In 2012, the Medici Chapels Museum celebrated
the first Medici pope, Leo X, five hundred years after his election to
the papal throne. The exhibition, curated by Nicoletta Baldini and
Monica Bietti, examined the entire life of Giovanni - second son of
Lorenzo the Magnificent - from his birth to his election as new pope
with the name of Leo X, including also his meeting with Michelangelo .
Masterpieces by Ghirlandaio, Della Robbia, Perugino, Raphael,
Michelangelo, Sansovino were also exhibited, as well as goldsmith's
works and illuminated manuscripts.
In 2014 it was the seventeenth
most visited Italian state site, with 317,135 visitors and a total gross
revenue of 737,800 Euros.
The crypt is the first room which is accessed from the museum
entrance. In this room, supported by low vaults, the tombstones of the
grand dukes, their wives and close family members are found on the
floor. For example, the tomb of Giovanni dalle Bande Nere and his wife
Maria Salviati was also placed here.
Recently [unclear] a rich
collection of seventeenth-eighteenth-century reliquaries linked to the
sumptuous grand-ducal patronage has been placed in numerous cases.
Inside the Museum, these artifacts are part of the broader exhibition
itinerary called “In the sign of the Medici. Sacred treasures of
grand-ducal devotion” which celebrates the figure of Ferdinando I de'
Medici and his wife Christine of Lorraine and their rich collection of
relics and sumptuous devotional furnishings. These are precious works
produced by goldsmiths active at the Florentine court, such as Odoardo
Vallet and Jonas Flack.
From this room, two stairways lead to the
chapel of the Princes above.
There is also another crypt under
the basilica, where the tombs of Cosimo the Elder and Donatello are
located, but it is not accessible from here.
The sumptuous octagonal room is 28 meters wide and is surmounted by
the dome of San Lorenzo, which reaches a height of 59 meters, the second
most majestic in the city after that of Brunelleschi.
It was
conceived by Cosimo I, but its realization is due to his successor
Ferdinando I, who commissioned the architect Matteo Nigetti, 1604, to a
design by Don Giovanni de' Medici, brother of the same grand duke, as
manager of the factory. Buontalenti himself intervened by partially
modifying the project.
The dazzling splendor is given by the very
rich inlays in Florentine commission, for the realization of which the
Opificio delle pietra dure was created. This art, still practiced above
all in the decoration of furniture and vases, found its peak here, even
if the funereal tone of the work led to the choice of more muted and
dark colors with porphyry and granite. In the plinth, however, more
colored hard stones were used, as well as mother-of-pearl, lapis lazuli
and coral to reproduce the coats of arms of the sixteen Tuscan cities
loyal to the Medici family.
The statues of the grand dukes should
have entered the niches, even if only those for Ferdinando I and Cosimo
II were later made, both works by Pietro Tacca executed between 1626 and
1642.
The other grand-ducal tombs belong to Cosimo I (1519-1574),
Francesco I (1541-1587) and Cosimo III (who succeeded Ferdinando II,
1643-1723). In the center of the atrium, in the intentions of the
clients, the Holy Sepulcher was to be located, although the various
attempts to buy or steal it in Jerusalem failed.
The sarcophagi
are actually empty and the real remains of the grand dukes and their
families (about fifty major and minor) up to Anna Maria Luisa de' Medici
(last heir of the dynasty, 1667-1743), are kept in simple rooms created
in the floor of the crypt below
From behind the altar there is
access to a small room where other precious reliquaries are displayed,
some of which were donated to the city by Leo X.
Built by Michelangelo on several occasions between 1521 and 1534, it
is accessed from a corridor from the Cappella dei Principi, while the
door that allows you to enter the basilica is closed today.
Commissioned by Pope Leo X and Cardinal Giulio de' Medici (future
Clement VII), Michelangelo Buonarroti built it starting from the same
plan as Brunelleschi's Old Sacristy and divided the space into more
complex forms, with triumphal arches that open onto apses. Recessed into
the two side walls, he created the monumental tombs dedicated to
Giuliano de' Medici, duke of Nemours and his nephew Lorenzo de' Medici,
duke of Urbino, for which he sculpted three sculptures each: the
Allegories of Time, placed above the tombs, and the portraits above of
the Dukes. 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, by followers of Michelangelo
respectively Montorsoli for San Cosma and Raffaello da Montelupo for San
Damiano.
In the sarcophagus under the statue of the Madonna and
Child are the remains of Lorenzo the Magnificent and his brother
Giuliano de' Medici, for whom there was never time to build a monumental
tomb: in 1534, in fact, Michelangelo left Florence for good and left the
work unfinished. After this date he followed the development by letter,
first giving instructions to Tribolo, then, after the latter's death,
through Montorsoli and Raffaello da Montelupo, son of his old
collaborator Baccio da Montelupo, and then through Vasari who was joined
by the huddle up. The latter, at the same time, also worked on the crypt
above which, 50 years later, the Chapel of the Princes would rise.