Cappelle Medicee

Nowhere is Medici conceit expressed so explicitly as in their mausoleum. The soaring and rather overblown main chapel is sumptuously adorned in baroque style with granite, marble and semi-precious stones. From here a corridor leads to the stark Sagrestia Nuova (New Sacristy), Michelangelo’s first architectural work and showcase for three of his most haunting sculptures. Aurora e Crepusculo (Dawn and Dusk) lounges on the sarcophagus of the unpopular Lorenzo Duke of Urbino (1492–1519), to whom Machiavelli dedicated The Prince. Notte e Giorno (Night and Day) marks the spot opposite where a son of Lorenzo il Magnifico is buried. The unfinished tomb of Lorenzo il Magnifico is simply adorned with a serene Madonna col Bambino (Madonna and Child). Like his Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana, the room borrows from Brunelleschi but subtly unsettles the viewer with its empty niches, overlapping decorative elements and the precarious way the monumental figures of Dawn, Dusk, Day and Night are perched on their curved pedestals.