Florence & Tuscany Guide / Museums / Medici Chapels

The Medici Chapels. A vast complex of chapels of great historical and architectural interest. The large crypt, which holds the tombs of the Medici family, was designed Buontalenti.

The underground chambers of the Church of San Lorenzo, restored after the flood, hold the simple and suggestive Tomb of Cosimo the Elder, inserted into the central pillar, and the Tomb of Donatello, whose plaque was placed there during a later period (18th century).

Michelangelo began work on it in 1521. One vault was completed by 1524, but the expulsion of the Medici family in 1527 and the siege of Florence caused work to slow down.

In 1534 Michelangelo left Florence for the last time causing the project to be left incomplete; the artist had only managed to finish two of the tombs, the Tomb of Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino, and the Tomb of Giuliano de' Nemours.