Medici Chapel, Michelangelo: description and photo

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

In 1421-1428, Brunelleschi built a chapel on the side of the San Lorenzo temple (Medici chapel) in Florence. She was to become a crypt for the Medici house. Almost a hundred years later, Pope Leo X invited Michelangelo to complete its facade. Due to lack of money, work was stopped.

Florence, Church of San Lorenzo

The oldest church in Florence is the Temple of San Lorenzo. In 339 this cathedral was consecrated by St. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan. It was rebuilt during the Romanesque period and re-consecrated in 1059. In 1418, the Medici decided to completely rebuild it and entrusted it to Philip Brunelleschi. The temple inside is decorated with works by Donatello. The Chapel of the Princes has become the burial place for all the Medici dukes of the second line of the family, starting with Cosimo I. It flaunts the we alth and power of the Medici.

It is filled with all the coats of arms of the cities of the Duchy of Tuscany and the coat of arms of the Medici on the ceiling. The sumptuous interior of Florentine mosaics took almost two hundred years to complete. The work has been done very carefully. There were supposed to be the burial places of six dukes. In reality, the huge sarcophagi are empty and serve only asfunerary monuments. In fact, the Medici are buried in the crypt. Behind each sarcophagus there is a niche in the wall. They were supposed to house sculptures of the dukes. However, there are only two monuments - the statue of Ferdinand I and Cosimo II. The dome repeats the dome of Brunelleschi and is decorated with scenes from Scripture.

Crypt with graves. Princes Chapel

The entrance to the Medici Chapel will lead directly to the crypt. It is from here that you can go to the chapel of the princes and the New Sacristy. The crypt is dark and gloomy, which is natural for the tomb, where most of the members of the Medici family are actually buried, including those who were supposed to rest in the chapel of the princes.

In the picture, a noble lady is sitting in a majestic chair. This is Anna Maria Luisa de Medici, the last heiress of this family, who died in 1743. She left a huge artistic legacy in her native Florence.

For fans of Michelangelo

In 1520, it was necessary to build a chapel with gravestones for Lorenzo the Magnificent and his brother Giuliano, as well as for two other sons of the Medici family: Giuliano, Duke of Nemours, and Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino. In addition, Cardinal Giulio, cousin of Pope Leo X, wants to entrust Michelangelo with the construction of the library. It should contain books belonging to the whole family, as well as received from various courtiers and other famous book lovers. The Medici Chapel and the New Sacristy in it and the library are two responsible assignments for the 45-year-old master, who for the first time will have to deal witharchitecture.

The new sacristy is one of the architectural projects that the master brought to the end. It contains no less than seven sculptures of the Renaissance genius.

Getting Started

Cardinal Giulio of the Medici family, elected pope under the name Clement VII, called Michelangelo to Rome and gave firm instructions that the Medici chapel should be completed immediately. He wants to be glorified through the centuries no less than Pope Leo X and his predecessors, who left a memory of themselves as patrons of architecture, sculpture and painting. It was necessary to perpetuate the images not of the famous Medici who were in ancient times, but of those who established the monarchy in Florence. They were two young dukes who did not glorify themselves in any way. The New Sacristy in the Church of San Lorenzo (Medici Chapel) should form a single complex with the Old, which was built by Brunelleschi.

Michelangelo conceived and then made it with more complex orders, cornices, capitals, doors, niches and tombs. He departed from the previously accepted rules and customs. The Medici Chapel, at the request of the pope, should no longer include the tombs of Lorenzo the Magnificent and his brother Giuliano. The tombs of Pope Leo X and his own should take pride of place. Wishing that no one else would use the genius of Michelangelo, Clement VII invited the architect to become a monk and take the veil of the Order of St. Francis. When the artist refused, dad gave him a house. Next to it stood the Medici Chapel. The salary exceeded 3 times the amount requested by Michelangelo.

Michelangelo inFlorence

What was Michelangelo Buonarroti to do? The Medici Chapel required the addition of a chapel. It was necessary to erect a ceiling vault, build a light lantern and perform a number of no less laborious works. And then you can already think about the sculptures with which the sculptor intended to decorate the tombstones of Giuliano and Lorenzo Medici. This will require workers, and therefore money from Clement VII.

Designs of Duke sculptures

How does the Medici Chapel make you feel? Michelangelo, not fooling himself, assumed that when the sculptures were ready, they would disappoint those who wanted to see the image of the two descendants of the family. They will not have a portrait resemblance. He wanted to create new people, born not only of their time, but also of their own new artistic challenges. In statues, movement should be conveyed by the balance of the pose, which seems to be frozen in the air. They will be two strong young men, filled with stately calm.

Medici Chapel: Description

In the tomb of the Medici, a person finds himself in a completely different world, not the one that was on the street. You are overcome by a feeling of longing and the impression that you are in the square. There are unfinished facades of houses around, because dark pilasters, platbands on rare windows, the windows themselves, the light walls of this ensemble give an unsettling feeling of a medieval street and square. It is this space that includes a person in the rapidly flowing flow of time that Michelangelo created. The master's tomb is a reflection on the measure of variability, duration and brevity of existence, captured in the fusion of architecture andsculptures.

Madonna

In the Church of San Lorenzo (Medici Chapel), the New Sacristy looks like a free cube topped with a vault. The architect placed niches with wall-mounted, significantly enlarged tombs in the walls. For them, he used life-size sculptural figures. Opposite the altar, he placed the sculptural group "Madonna and Child" and surrounded it with statues of St. Cosmas and Damian (patrons of the Medici).

They were made by his students according to his clay sketches. The Madonna is the key to the entire chapel. She is beautiful and inwardly focused. Madonna's face is inclined towards the child. She is full of sadness and sorrow. Madonna is immersed in deep, heavy meditation. The folds of her clothes create a tense rhythmic action and connect her with the entire architectural form. The baby reaches out to her. It is also filled with internal dynamics and tension, which is consistent with the entire chapel. The Madonna plays a very important role in the composition of the chapel. It is to her that the figures of Giuliano and Lorenzo are turned.

Statues in niches

Without a hint of portrait resemblance, two allegorical figures are sitting in the armor of the ancient Romans. Courageous, energetic Giuliano with his head uncovered leans on the commander's baton.

It symbolizes the peace that came after the war. This is an allegory of active life. Whereas his brother Lorenzo is in the deepest meditation and symbolizes the contemplative life.

His head coveredantique helmet, leans on his hand, and with his elbow - on the box, the animal muzzle of which is symbolic. It means wisdom and business qualities. Both figures are tired and melancholy. Niches squeezed them, which causes the viewer a feeling of anxiety and anxiety. They are experiencing a difficult time of wars and troubles and remember Lorenzo the Magnificent, the benefactor of Italy, under whom peace reigned.

Figures on the lids of sarcophagi

Sliding off the sloping lids of the tombs, barely holding onto them, lie sculptural allegories of morning and evening at Lorenzo's feet and day and night at Giuliano's. The symbols of running time are painfully uncomfortable. Their powerful bodies with ideal proportions are embodied languor and sorrow. “Morning” wakes up slowly and reluctantly, “Day” is awake joylessly and anxiously, “Evening”, numb, falls asleep, “Night” is immersed in a heavy restless sleep. What is the bird in the Medici Chapel? "Night" with its foot rests on an owl, which, if it flutters, will wake it up.

The stone she holds in her hand can fall out at any moment and wake her up too. There is no rest of the "Night". This is evidenced by the mask full of suffering in her hand.

The figure of the "Day" deserves attention, because the inconsistency of the sculpting of the beautiful body and the head that is hardly turning towards the viewer is surprising. The body is beautiful and polished, and the face shows through slightly, the image is barely outlined. Den retains traces of instruments and is artistically under-formulated. The "Morning" and "Evening" figures have not been finalized. This creates additional expressiveness, anxiety andthreat. The sculptor was not afraid to go beyond his time, forcing the viewer to think out and interpret the sculptures in any way. Here is the face of the "Evening" (Medici Chapel). The photo confirms the above.

The figures don't want to live or feel. All together, the times of day confirm the Medici motto "Always" (Semper), meaning constant service. Together with the figures of young people, the allegories are enclosed in a stable triangular composition.

Crouching Boy

The Medici Chapel and the heavy timelessness that embraces a person in it had another sculpture, which is now in the Hermitage.

She is also called "The Boy Taking Out the Splinter". If you mentally return it to the chapel, it turns out that the infinity of time is connected with the moment. This is a small statue that freely enters the cube. She, like The Day, is not quite finished: her bottom has not been finalized, and her back has not been polished. The child is all bent over to the sore leg, such an unusual and unexpected posture for him. The sculptor sought to remove from the marble only the most necessary, so that if it fell from the pedestal, then nothing would break off. The boy is important in the overall design, for he is a moment within time. If the Madonna is a historical, Christian time that united the people of that era, then the boy is its short duration. He is both the situation and the moment. The figures under the niches are in the same cycle of changing times, and not by themselves, standing out in something special. Everything in a genius exists as in life -simultaneously and diversely.

Laurentian Library

Simultaneously with the work in the New Sacristy, which he turned into a majestic chapel, Michelangelo was building a library. Passing through a cozy courtyard, through the left nave you can get into it. It is for the initiated only.

It contains ancient manuscripts, illustrated codices, the text of the union, which was concluded at the Council of Florence in 1439. First there was a vestibule, then a hall for manuscripts, where they could be stored and read. This long room of gray stone has light-coloured walls. The lobby is tall. Further than it, tourists are not allowed. There are no statues in it, but there are double columns that are recessed into the walls. Particular attention was paid to the unusual marble staircase, which resembles the flow of molten lava. It has semi-circular steep steps and very low railings. It starts at the threshold of the vestibule and expands to form three parts. The master himself was already in Rome, when a staircase was built on his clay model - the main attraction of the lobby.

This concludes the description of the creation of the genius Michelangelo. In this grandiose work, he embodied his innovative ideas. They are so universal that they have acquired significance for all mankind. This is how the Medici Chapel changed. Florence received a Medici monument, which became a monument to the city itself.