Michelangelo

The tour revisits the life of the “divine sculptor”: from his early steps in the garden of San Marco, where Lorenzo the Magnificent had created a place where artists could exercise by copying ancient works under the guidance of the sculptor Bertoldo, up to the project for the David, a work started by the sculptor Agostino di Duccio, but that neither Agostino nor any of the other appointed artists had been able to complete due to a series of issues. Only Michelangelo was able to accomplish this miracle, creating at the same time the model of male beauty for the next centuries to come.

From this work celebrating the Florentine Republic, we will then move on to admire the “unfinished” Slaves created by Michelangelo for the grandiose tomb of Pope Julius II, which turned during the artist’s life from stimulating challenge into the “tragedy of the burial”, as it was described by his biographer and friend Ascanio Condivi.

After admiring the David and the Slaves for the Papal tomb, housed in the Accademia Gallery, we will visit the Medici Chapels and the New Sacristy in the Church of San Lorenzo, where we will discover how Michelangelo faced the topic of death, while admiring the tombs he sculpted for the Medici within a space also designed by the artist himself.

The political and allegorical meanings behind Michelangelo’s sculptures will finally teach us about the troubled events of Florentine history during the clash between the Republic and the increasingly powerful Medici family at the end of the 15th century and at the beginning of the 16th.