MEDICI CHAPELS

Location:	FLORENCE Piazza Madonna degli Aldobrandini
Open: 8.15-16.50; Sundays and public holidays 8.15-16.50. Closed on Monday. Description: This monumental complex comprises the Prince's Chapel, with its wonderful polychrome marble decoration, and the New Sacristy begun by Michelangelo (1512) and completed by Vasari and Ammannati. Here, Renaissance architecture and sculpture reached their artistic peak with the famous Medici tombs: the "Sepulchre of Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino, with its sublime allegorical statues of the "Thinker", "Dawn" and "Dusk", and the "Sepulchre of Giuliano, Duke of Nemours" with the statue of the Duke, "Day" and "Night". Close to a third tomb, which contains the relics of Lorenzo the Magnificent and his brother Giuliano, is the splendid "Madonna with Child". Treasure with valuable furnishings and reliquaries. Drawings by Michelangelo, discovered in 1975, and others are in display in a small room on the left of the apse (please book at the entrance to visit them).

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