MICHELANGELO'S SAN LORENZO LIBRARY, FLORENCE.

I'm back in Florence again today continuing the theme of Medici patronage introduced in the last posting. One of the things I love about the city is the fact its Renaissance history is perfectly encapsulated in its myriad of buildings which date from the 15th and 16th centuries. On every corner and down every atmospheric street there's something to see of significance and I'm also mindful of the fact that exterior facades are often misleading.

Just round the corner from Palazzo Medici, right in the city centre and on the edge of the market district, is the church and monastery complex of San Lorenzo. - The church used to be the Medici family's parish church. It doesn't look much from the outside (an external front facade was designed by Michelangelo but never built) but go inside and its a different story, for this is one of the most important church complexes in the city after the Duomo. In different parts of San Lorenzo its possible to see interiors and furnishings by some of the best known names associated with the Italian Renaissance and they are stunning. Not surprisingly books dealing with the history of western art nearly always feature them in some detail.

The unfinished front of the church of San Lorenzo

The San Lorenzo complex photographed from the top of the Duomo nearby

The aerial view of  San Lorenzo shown above reveals some of the different parts which make up the whole. In the centre of the foreground is the square void of the cloister of the monastery and the long tiered building to the right is the nave of the church of San Lorenzo with its unfinished facade visible in dark shadow. Beneath the tall square tower at the back of the nave is a shorter building sticking out to the left - this is the Old Sacristy designed by Brunelleschi and with interior decoration and tondo sculptures by Donatello. Beyond that is the long roof of the reading room of Michelangelo's Laurentian Library. The huge octagonal domed tower, which looks a bit like a miniature version of the Duomo, represents the core of the Medici Chapels housing the impressive hardstone tombs of  members of the Medici family by Matteo Nigetti. The green roofed building above the nave of San Lorenzo is the glass roof of the famous 19th century Florentine market halls.

The church is one of several in Florence claiming to be the city's oldest - it can trace its consecration back to 393AD and at one time in those early centuries it was the city's cathedral. In 1419, Giovanni di Bicci de Medici offered to put up the money for part of an ambitious proposed new church project to replace the old fashioned Romanesque church building that had been erected there in the 11th century. Filipo Brunelleschi, a relative new comer to architectural commissions in Florence at the time, was commissioned to produce the design and construction began on the Sacristy in 1419. By the early 1440's this was the only part of the church that been worked on in any detail as money for the rest of the project was in short supply. It was at that time that Giovanni's sons, Cosimo and Piero, came to the rescue with more cash and the nave was finally completed, with alterations, by 1459, thirteen years after Brunelleschi's death in 1446. It still wasn't finished though - side chapels were still being constructed in the 1490's.

The nave of San Lorenzo

Step in to the nave through the front entrance today and the interior space is serene and harmonious. The use of the dark grey pietra serena stone to articulate the proportioned and balanced structure, all against a plain white background, together with the simple geometric shapes of the slender perpendicular columns and semi-circular arches, draws the eye forward to the altar at the front of the basilica. Despite the alterations to Brunelleschi's original plans the building is thought by architectural historians to be a fine representative example of the new classical style that would dominate Renaissance architecture in the city from the middle of the 15th century.

Walk forward through the nave towards the alter and there are two must sees here.

The Old Sacristy by Filipo Brunelleschi 1421-1440
An exercise in geometetry, proportion and harmony in grey and white

Firstly - off the left transept is the entrance to the Old Sacristy - the earliest part of Brunelleschi's new church completed in 1440 and the place where the architect pioneered the ideas which characterise the main church which it was finally attached to in 1459. It's a perfect domed square with an integrated unity of elements and again the grey stone contrasts with the white walls emphasising the balanced and proportioned whole.

Old Sacristy Celestial Ceiling - San Lorenzo

Look up and the domed ceiling is painted with an early 1440's ceiling which depicts the sun and star constellations as they would have appeared on the night of July 4th 1442.They were restored in the 1980's. But the other notable feature of the interior is the decorative embellishments by Cosimo Medici's favourite sculptor Donatello.

Tondo relief - The Ascension of St John the Evangelist - polychrome stucco
Old Sacristy - San Lorenzo.

St Stephen and Saint Lawrence - above door stucco panel by Donatello
Old Sacristy - San Lorenzo

In the spandrels of the dome are circular low relief sculptures called tondi (singular tondo) which were made from stucco plaster and painted in shades of blue, white and terra cotta. They tell the story of San Giovanni Evangelista (St John the Evangelist). Over the tops of each of the arches are further painted stucco tondi (two colours this time) of the four Evangelists. Above the doors are Donatello panels, each with two saints. The one on the right depicts Saints Cosmas and Damian - the protectors of the Medici family. The family presence is also marked by the oval gilded Medici shields found beneath each of the spandrel tondi. Finally - we shouldn't forget the tombs in this room. In the centre - the tomb of Giovanni di Bicci de Medici by Buggiono and at the sides the tombs of Giovanni and Piero de Medici by Verocchio.

Back in the main body of the church we find two of the most famous objects to have come out of the early Renaissance in Italy - Donatello's famous pulpits - works droolled and poured over by students of the sculptor for decades. Essentially they are huge, bronze four sided oblong shaped boxes raised on sets of four marble columns (these are later in date and presumably reflect the fact the pulpits were raised on them in the 16th century). Get close to them and the sculptural details of the figurative scenes on the side panels of each are terrific. Both were made by Donatello between 1460 and 1465 towards the end of his career. They've been named the North and South pulpits, but the subjects matter on each has also meant they have been dubbed the "Passion" and "Resurrection" pulpits. If you visit they are worthy of detailed observation - see how many stories from the New Testament you can recognise. I'm moved to think these were the pulpits the firebrand priest Savonarola preached some of his sermons from in the late 15th century before he was finally arrested and burnt at the stake in the Piazza della Signoria.

The Passion Pulpit - San Lorenzo 

And finally we come to my last subject for this post. (I'm leaving the Medici chapels for a later blog) - Michelangelo's Laurentian Library - a sublime interior which I found jaw droppingly beautiful.

Bronze Relief Panel from the Resurrection Pulpit by Donatello in San Lorenzo 

I've mentioned before that many members of the Medici family prided themselves in their humanist values and collecting interests. The priceless manuscript collection, started by Cosimo de Medici and then built up by others and consisting of codexes, classical manuscripts, medieval works and others, was hugely important to them. In times of trouble the collection was requisitioned by the Republic in 1494 and placed in the library established by Cosimo at San Marco, but when the Medici returned to favour again and came back to Florence Cardinal Giovanni de Medici (later Pope Leo X) redeemed the manuscripts and took them to the Vatican for safe keeping.

But the Medici Popes always seemed set to establish their library legacy in their home city of Florence and the idea for a purpose built Florentine library for the collection had been around for a long time. Cosimo's son, Lorenzo de Medici (Lorenzo the Magnificent) had started a library project but work on it stopped at the time of his death in 1492. Legend has it that it was a spare piece of marble from this project which protoge Michelangelo carved his first sculpture from - the head of a fawn in 1490.

In 1523 Pope Clement VII - the former Giulio de Medici - wrote a letter via his agent Giovanni Fattucci to Michelangelo Buonarotti in Florence asking him to build a library  at San Lorenzo for the manuscript collection housed in the Vatican. It would be the artist's first proper architectural commission. Michelangelo produced many drawings for it (there were 15 batches of drawings in the first 6 months of 1524) and these would be sent to Rome for the Pope's comments. Clement took a great deal of interest in every aspect of Michelangelo's proposals sending his comments and own ideas back to him quickly. He commented on mouldings, the mortar to be using in the building, the construction of the foundations and even asked Michelangelo to be mindful of the type of wood he chose for the readers' benches - suggesting walnut for its longevity. The Pope loved novelty and wrote to Michelangelo - "a vostro modo" - "do it in your own way".  I love the story of Michelangelo proposing to the Pope that he used roof skylights to illuminate the reading room and the Pope wrote back "at least 2 friars will have to be employed to keep them free of dust"!

The finished result was and is a remarkable achievement and it certainly scored highly on the novelty index. Architectural historians have classified the library as a work of "Mannerism" - a style which affected all the arts in the middle of the 16th century including sculpture and painting. Mannerism was an intellectually driven style where artists deliberately sought to present the  user of a space or a viewer with challenging problems of separating the real from the imagined or possibly turning convention on its head or even setting out to create atmospheres of conflict and tension. Michelangelo's work at the Laurentian Library certainly satisfies some of these descriptive criteria for the style.

The library consists of a vestibule room with a staircase which leads up to the reading room which takes the form of a long oblong shape, Entering the vestibule room does produce a sensation of slight strangeness - the beautiful pietra serena elliptical staircase appears to flow right out in to the middle of the room instead of being conventionally set back. The walls punctuated with tall windows with classical moulded frames give the appearance or form one might expect to see on the outside of a building rather than on the inside. One author I consulted described it as being a bit like a building turned inside out and I thought this to be a good description of the feeling you get when entering the room. Interestingly Michelangelo's plans for the room broke the rules of classical architecture for the columns surrounding the windows and volutes beneath them are not structural elements and purely there for their visual effect. Climbing the stairs, which were completed by Ammanati in 1559 to Micehlangelo's designs, one reaches a huge monumental classically pedimented doorway at the top and then its the reading room itself.

Vestibule entrance - Laurentian Library - San Lorenzo

This is a huge room and quieter in feel to the vestibule - no doubt the intention of the artist designer.. Its also a room flooded with light from both sides. The balanced sequence of grey stone windows down each side of the room give a sense of harmony and rythm and contrast with the white walls. Each is ornamented with Medici devices and coats of arms relating to members of the family, Let no one forget who was responsible for this fabulous interior. There's a warm feeling cotto floor by Santi Bugliolo and a rather interesting carved ceiling executed by Bartista del Tasso. But the crowning glory are the Michelangelo designed furnishings in walnut as the Pope had wanted. This is a special place. It was incomplete when Michelangelo had to return to Rome in 1534 and it was finished off by Tribolo, Vasari and Ammanati under Cosimo the I's direction.It finally opened in 1571.

Vestibule Staircase from above

The Readiing Room, Laurentian Library - San Lorenzo

As you will have gathered I love this interior - I always think libraries make for interesting spaces for all sorts of reasons and this one is very special and one of my favourites.

The Medici Coat of Arms

There are set opening hours for the church and different parts of the San Lorenzo complex so check times and entrance charges on their website. The Laurentian Library is not always open so again research is needed to see what the situation is. My last minute advice - don't visit Florence without visiting San Lorenzo - its a gem.

Ciao and until next time - IAN