Michelangelo's Library & Medici's Chapel

Part of spending such a long time in Florence is to give ourselves time to see the lesser-known beauties, including some of the greatest libraries of the world. On this day, we decided to head towards the Basilica of San Lorenzo, one of the older religious sites in Florence, where, close-by, sits the Bibliotecha Laurenziana designed by Michelangelo and the Medici Chapel, with its Chapel of the Princes.

Laurenziana, as a library and its reading room, housed original manuscripts on history, the arts, geography, philosophy and general humanities. It would have looked like this on its opening in the late 1500s:

The marble entryway, so so soft to the touch, with blind windows added for symmetry and grandeur.

The study benches. Note that once seated, aside from the soft sound of pages turning, heads would not appear above the bench-back line, giving the studier the impression of solitude. The marble  design on the floor directly matches the wood carving on the ceiling. 

The vertical  writing on the aisle wood is the card catalogue, every book housed here was listed according to subject, and you had to sit in that row to have access to that book.

30 stained glass windows line the walls with Medici emblems, heraldry and family story held within each design.

A collection of Dante's work is housed here, available for viewing. Here a page from The Commedia. The drawing  samples from The Inferno are pretty chilling!

Moving down the road to the Medici Chapel, attached to the Basilica of San Lorenzo. The word Chapel evokes the image of something small, no? 

We are stopped in our tracks upon entering this jaw-dropping space. The Hall of the Princes, originally intended to be the tombs of the Medici dynasty. The marble  floor was only finished in 1962, and restoration is on-going. For size, note Marc reading the information panel in the bottom left of this photo.

The painted ceiling

Another spectacular day!