Medici Chapel Essay

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The Medici Chapel is located in Florence, Italy and it is a house to the Medici family. The Medici Chapel includes, the Crypt, The Princes’ Chapel (Cappella del Principi) and The New Sacristy (Sacrestia Nuova). The main rooms are the New Sacristy and the Princes’ Chapel, and the entrance is at the back of San Lorenzo. The New Sacristy was designed and built by Michelangelo in 1519. The Princes’ Chapel is where the members of the Medici family are buried. In 1520, the first Medici pope, Leo X, son of Lorenzo the Magnificent, passed the Medici project to Michelangelo, who was at the time working under pressure on his designs for the façade of San Lorenzo, the Medici Church. Michelangelo had constructed a wooden model of the projected design in the end of 1526. Michelangelo was worried about taking on the new commission, which would involve designing the Chapel with all the monuments. The construction had to match Brunelleschi’s Sacristy on the other side of the transept in the Basilica of San Lorenzo. He wanted everything about the new building; the appearance, supporting elements, conception of space, architectonic decoration and ornament, to be original and unexpected. Giorgio Vasari, his collaborator understood Michelangelo’s ideas, …show more content…

Stone, marble and brick were used to repeat the geometrical forms and patterns to give the proportion in the spaces. The Medici Chapel uses the patterns on the floor to create a system of proportion that connects to the space. The plastered stucco walls are articulated by pilasters and trim of grey sandstone. The pilasters are wider and stronger. They press in the marble panels designed for the funerary monuments. From the exterior of the building, one could see that the chapel is a mass of masonry. It is called the “New Sacristy” but it had never functioned as a sacristy because, it was a funeral chapel for the Medici

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