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Michelangelo's Vision for Florence

The focus of Medicean works of the period remains the church of San Lorenzo, traditionally considered family "property". Pope Leo X sponsored the competition for the church facade. Giulio dei Medici (later Pope Clement VII) built the new sacristy (1520-34), that was to serve as the family mausoleum, and then the Laurentian Library (1523-29) that was completed during the era of Cosimo I.

Starting from a study of Florentine architecture (Brunelleschi, Giuliano da Sangallo, Il Cronaca), Michelangelo developed his own personal vision. Rather than attempting to eliminate the contradictions of his era that made any solution presented as a fixed truth, recognizable by all, totally impossible, he translated the contradiction itself, the internal contrast, into an absolute value.

The area Michelangelo designed in the New Sacristy and the Laurentian library is internal unto itself. This does not mean that it complies with Brunelleschi's mode in the sense of space that summarizes and sublimates all relationships with the outside through the calculated harmony of the proportions, but rather to the extent that every other reality beyond that which is imposed in the Sacristy is precluded, excluded and eliminated. Therefore, the "facades" look towards the interior.

The space is the result of the practically obsessive repetition of the wall designed like an external "façade". It is a world created from the inside, and it is no coincidence that upon entering the Sacristy one loses all sense of orientation. The walls are not like those designed by Brunelleschi, two dimensional surfaces between the structural lines; they are plastic forms that pull downwards with their weight.

The positions and proportions of the architectural elements do not follow traditional rules, they were developed on the basis of dynamics that derive from this general concept. Therefore, they created continuously unstable equilibria, internal conflicts in tension (central portions that are narrower than the lateral creating an effect of distance, compressed niches and doors, dilated arches, etc.).

The same features return in the Laurentian Library where the dynamics of Michelangelo's vision, based on movement within tight boundaries and contrasts can be seen as they develop in sequence: the vestibule is decidedly vertical, the reading room expands in depth, the last, triangular room for rare books compressed and limited (not realized). The spatial qualifications of these sequences are perfectly consistent with the functional qualification.

Clement VII opposed Charles V. After the sack of Rome (1527 the Florentines rebelled. Once again they banished the Medici and reestablished a republican regime (with Niccolò Capponi as gonfalonier). The reconciliation between Clement VII and the Emperor brought with it an agreement that allowed the Medici to return to Florence. The Republic was besieged for eleven months (1529-30) but in the end it was forced to yield. As a symbolic execution of the Republic the palace tower in Piazza della Signoria was destroyed.

In 1529 the republican government appointed Michelangelo Governor General and Procurator of the city's fortifications in order to defend Florence against any attempt by Clement VII to take the city by force. Michelangelo built the bastions in front of the gates of the Medieval circle of walls and fortified the entire hill of San Miniato with structures consisting of pressed earth mixed with straw and covered with raw bricks.

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