Built as the parish church of the Medici family and consecrated as one of the oldest churches in Florence, the Basilica of San Lorenzo lies just behind the central market and was rebuilt in its present form in the early fifteenth century to designs by Filippo Brunelleschi. Many of the early Medici, including Cosimo the Elder and Lorenzo the Magnificent, are buried in its precincts. Brunelleschi nave, with its grey pietra serena pilasters set against pale plaster walls, is a textbook example of early Renaissance interior architecture, lighter and more rational than the Gothic churches that preceded it. The facade was famously never finished, and the rough brick of its exterior is one of the more striking unfinished features of any major Italian church. The Old Sacristy off the north transept was designed by Brunelleschi and decorated by Donatello, with its tomb of Cosimo the Elder beneath the floor and Donatello tondi of evangelists and martyrs in the pendentives, a pioneering work that influenced generations of Florentine architects. The New Sacristy on the south side, by Michelangelo, holds the tombs of Lorenzo and Giuliano de Medici, with Michelangelo allegorical figures of Day, Night, Dawn and Dusk reclining on the sarcophagi, among the most famous sculptures of the Italian Renaissance. Behind the church the Medici Chapels, lavishly faced with semiprecious stones, hold the remains of the Grand Dukes of Tuscany, the later generation of the family that succeeded the Renaissance lords, and beside the cloisters the Laurentian Library, again by Michelangelo, with its astonishing vestibule and reading room. The whole complex, with its layered Brunelleschi, Donatello and Michelangelo contributions, amounts to one of the most concentrated showcases of Florentine Renaissance art and architecture in the city, and although less famous than the Duomo or the Uffizi, it offers a quieter, more intimate immersion in the achievements of the period. The famous bronze pulpits by Donatello flanking the choir of the church, decorated with reliefs of the Passion and the Resurrection of Christ, were the sculptor last great works and were left unfinished at his death in 1466, completed by his pupils. The grand exterior staircase to the Laurentian Library is one of the most influential single architectural inventions of Michelangelo career, prefiguring the dramatic effects of the high baroque almost a century early. A quiet inner cloister at the side of the church offers a calm break from the busy market area outside, and a small museum in the adjoining buildings displays liturgical objects, manuscripts and architectural fragments from the church long history.

Type: Tourist Attraction

Address: Piazza di San Lorenzo, Florence, Italy

Opening Date: 01/01/0393