Medici Chapels

The Medici didn't just run Florence — they made sure everyone would remember them forever. These chapels, attached to the Basilica of San Lorenzo, are the family mausoleum, and they're split between two very different aesthetics. The Chapel of the Princes is a Baroque explosion of colored marble, semi-precious stones, and gilded excess — a room so aggressively luxurious it took from 1604 to the late 1800s to complete. It's taste at its most debatable, but the craftsmanship is undeniable.

Then there's the New Sacristy, and everything changes. This was Michelangelo's first architectural project, designed in the 1520s, and it's a masterclass in restrained power. He sculpted the figures of Dawn, Dusk, Day, and Night as allegories of time's passage, draped across the tombs of Lorenzo and Giuliano de' Medici. These aren't the famous Medici — not Lorenzo the Magnificent or Cosimo the Elder — but lesser relatives elevated to immortality by the quality of their tombstones. Night is particularly stunning: a muscular female figure with an owl at her feet, her body tense even in sleep.

In 1975, workers discovered a small room beneath the chapel where Michelangelo had hidden for two months in 1530 to escape Medici persecution. The walls were covered in charcoal drawings — preliminary sketches attributed to Michelangelo himself. This secret room opened to the public in November 2023 after decades of restricted access.

Above it all, the Chapel of the Princes' dome — second largest in Florence after Brunelleschi's — dominates the San Lorenzo skyline. The Medici built their own heaven, and they filled it with themselves.