The Basilica of San Lorenzo – on the site of the first Christian church in Florence – was built outside the Roman walls and consecrated in AD 393, then rebuilt in the early 1400s.
That’s when Filippo Brunelleschi was hired to replace a Romanesque church that stood here. Brunelleschi designed the building, and Donatello worked on the bronze pulpits inside (among other things). It is considered one of Florence’s most harmonious examples of Renaissance architecture. It is an unfinished basilica – it was the Medici parish church and mausoleum.
Brunelleschi designed it in 1425 for Cosimo the Elder and built over a 4th-century church. In Old Sacristy, Donatello reigns supreme with his gorgeous bronze pulpit.
Michelangelo was commissioned to design the facade in 1518, but his design in white Carrara marble was never executed, hence, the building’s rough, unfinished appearance.
Donatello’s actual grave likes in the basilica crypt.
The attached museum displays chalices, altarpieces, altar cloths, processional crucifixes, episcopal brooches and other precious sacred treasures once displayed in the church.
The tomb of Cosimo the Elder is buried inside the quadrangular pilaster in the crypt supporting the basilica prebytery – his funerary monument sits directly above, in front of the high altar in the basilica.
Medici Chapels (Cappelle Medicee) – The burial site of the ruling family in the Basilica of San Lorenzo includes the dusky crypt; the big, domed Chapel of Princes; and the magnificent New Sacristy, featuring architecture, tombs, and statues almost entirely by Michaelangelo. The Medici made their money in textiles and banking, and patronized a dream team of Renaissance artists that put Florence on the cultural map. Michelangelo, who spent his teen years living with the Medici, was commissioned to create the family’s final tribute.
Nowhere is Medici conceit expressed so explicitly as in the Medici Chapels. Adorned with granite, marble, semi-precious stones and some of Michelangelo’s most beautiful sculptures, it is the burial place of 49 dynasty members.
Fransesco I lies in the dark, imposing Capella dei Principi (Chapel of Princes) alongside Ferdinando I and II and Cosimo I, II, and III.
Lorenzo il Magnifico is buried in the graceful New Sacristy, which was Michelangelo’s first architectural work.
It is also in the sacristy that you can swoon over three of Michelangelo’s most haunting scultpures: Dawn and Dusk on the sarcophagus of Lorenzo,
Duke of Urbino; Night and Day on the sarcophagus of Lorenzo’s son Giuliano; and Madonna and Child, which adorns Lorenzo’s tomb. Since early 2019 new lighting recreates the soft, indirect sunlight Michelangelo originally intended to illuminate his work. We did not get to experience this, as restoration work is ongoing and they needed the full light to continue their work.
