Medici Chapels

The Sagrestia Nuova: Michelangelo, 1520 to 1534

Cardinal Giulio de' Medici — later Pope Clement VII — and Pope Leo X commissioned Michelangelo to build a new sacristy answering Brunelleschi's old one on the other side of the church, as a burial chapel for four Medici. He began in 1520 and had the space vaulted by 1524. Then came the siege of Florence, the collapse of the republic and Michelangelo's own uneasy position on both sides of it; he left the city for good in 1534 with the sculptures carved but not installed, and other hands set them in place afterwards.

What you walk into is therefore an unfinished room by a sculptor working as an architect: grey pietra serena pilasters on white plaster, blind windows that taper as they rise, and niches whose statues were never made.

The Cappella dei Principi: Nigetti, 1604, and the dome you see from the street

The Chapel of the Princes is the octagon under the great brick dome — 59 metres high — that you see over the San Lorenzo rooftops from half of Florence. Ferdinando I ran a competition in 1602 and the design went to Matteo Nigetti; work began in 1604 and continued for the better part of three centuries. Every surface is clad in inlaid marble and semi-precious stone, and the workshop set up to do it, the Opificio delle Pietre Dure, still exists as the state's stone-restoration institute.

The modern entrance, with your ticket, is through this chapel: you come in at the bottom of the crypt, climb into the octagon, and reach the New Sacristy from a door on its far side. That order matters — the room most people photograph comes first, and the room worth the ticket comes second.

1976: the corridor found under the New Sacristy

In 1976 museum staff clearing a storeroom under the New Sacristy found a low corridor whose walls were covered in charcoal drawings, many of them attributed to Michelangelo and thought to date from the months in 1530 when he was hiding from the Medici after the fall of the republic. The room stayed closed to visitors for decades. It now opens in very small groups on a combination ticket, which is why the booking rule for it is different from everything else on this page.

Night and Day, on the tomb of Giuliano, Duke of Nemours

Giuliano sits in armour above two figures sprawled on the curved lid of his sarcophagus: a male nude straining awake, and a woman asleep with an owl beneath her knee, a mask at her back and a crescent in her hair. Benedetto Varchi named them Day and Night in a funeral oration of 1549 and the names stuck. Night is the most quoted figure in the room — she was already famous in Michelangelo's lifetime, and he wrote a bitter quatrain in her voice about preferring to sleep through the state of Florence.

Dawn and Dusk, on the tomb of Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino

Opposite, Lorenzo leans on his hand in a helmet, and below him a woman rises stiffly out of sleep while an old man sinks back into it: Dawn and Dusk. Neither duke is a portrait; Michelangelo is reported to have said nobody would care in a thousand years what they looked like. The pairing of the two tombs — one figure alert, one collapsing, on each — is the argument of the room, and it reads better from the middle of the floor than from either wall.

The Medici Madonna, and the tomb that was never built

On the entrance wall stands the Medici Madonna with Saints Cosmas and Damian on either side, the Virgin twisting to let the child climb across her. Under that wall lie Lorenzo the Magnificent and his brother Giuliano, murdered in the cathedral in 1478. The monument Michelangelo planned for them was never carved: the two men whose names carry the whole dynasty have the plainest grave in the building, marked by a slab under a Madonna he did finish.

The Chapel of the Princes: stone as inlay, from floor to dome

The octagon is dark red and green and black, entirely faced in marble and hard stone, with the arms of the Tuscan cities set into the dado in coloured inlay and the sarcophagi of the grand dukes ranged around the walls. Nothing here is painted; every colour is a cut piece of rock. Stand close to one of the city crests and you can see the joins, which are the whole point of pietre dure work — they are meant to be invisible and very nearly are.

Above, the dome was frescoed in the nineteenth century after three hundred years of the building being unfinished. The contrast with the New Sacristy next door is total: one room is grey, empty and unresolved, the other is loaded with the most expensive materials in Europe.

Michelangelo's secret room

The corridor found in 1976 is low, narrow and covered in charcoal figures — legs, torsos, a head that resembles the Laocoön. Access is by the €32 combination ticket (about $37) with a compulsory reservation on the official webshop, in groups small enough that the plaster is not damaged by breath and body heat. The museum does not publish the group size or the length of the visit, so treat it as a timed extra rather than something you can add on the day.

The standard ticket is €11 (about $13), €2 for EU citizens aged 18–25 with ID, and free under 18. The reservation costs €3 (about $3.50) and is optional; the museum does not sell out the way the Uffizi does, and on most days the desk is the simplest route.

Book ahead in two cases. The first is the secret room, where the €32 full or €7 reduced combination carries a compulsory reservation and is sold only on the museum's official webshop. The second is a day already built around timed tickets elsewhere, where a reserved-entrance ticket or the guided tour buys you a fixed hour and, on the guided option, someone to explain what Varchi's names actually meant.

The 72-hour ticket at €38 (about $44) covers the Accademia, the Bargello, these chapels, Orsanmichele, Palazzo Davanzati and Casa Martelli, which is closed until 31 December 2026. It pays from the third museum onward; how the combined tickets work has the booking order, since the Accademia is the one leg that must be timed.

Free days are the first Sunday of each month, 25 April and 4 November, with no reservation taken. The Firenzecard lists the Medici Chapels as 'no reservation required', so cardholders present the card at the door.

• Standard visit: €11 at the desk, no booking needed
• Secret room: €32 combination, compulsory reservation, official webshop only
• Three or more of the six museums in three days: the €38 ticket
• First Sunday, 25 April, 4 November: free, no reservation

The chapels open Tuesday to Sunday from 08:15 to 18:50, with last entrance 40 minutes before closing. They close every Monday, and on 25 December 2026 and 1 January 2027.

One date is worth planning around. On 10 August, the feast of Saint Lawrence — the Night of San Lorenzo — the museum opens in the evening from 19:15 to 23:00. That is the same night the basilica in front closes to visitors for the feast, and the same night the sky is supposed to be full of Perseids. If your trip crosses it, take the evening slot.

The opening and closing times match the Bargello and the Accademia exactly, which is what makes the 72-hour ticket workable: three museums, three mornings, one clock. The museum states no visit length; ours is 45 to 60 minutes alone, about 1.5 hours on the guided tour. On Mondays, when all three are shut, what is open on a Monday has the alternatives.

• Open Tuesday–Sunday 08:15–18:50; last entrance 40 minutes before closing
• Closed Mondays, 25 December 2026, 1 January 2027
• 10 August 2026, Night of San Lorenzo: open 19:15–23:00
• Free: first Sunday of each month, 25 April, 4 November

The entrance is at Piazza di Madonna degli Aldobrandini 6, on the small square behind the basilica — not the church façade on Piazza San Lorenzo, where the market stalls are and where a good number of visitors queue at the wrong door every morning. Walk around the left side of the church and the entrance is under the brick flank of the dome.

From Santa Maria Novella station it is about five minutes on foot along Via Nazionale and Via del Melarancio. From the Duomo, four minutes down Borgo San Lorenzo. A single urban bus or tram ticket is €2 (about $2.30), valid 90 minutes under the fares in force from 1 August 2026, and €3 if bought from the driver.

Mercato Centrale is two minutes north for lunch afterwards, and the whole quarter is inside the ZTL, closed to unauthorised cars Monday to Friday 07:30–20:00 and Saturday 07:30–16:00.

• Entrance: Piazza di Madonna degli Aldobrandini 6, behind the basilica
• 5 minutes from Santa Maria Novella station, 4 from the Duomo
• Urban bus or tram single €2, valid 90 minutes; €3 on board
• ZTL Monday–Friday 07:30–20:00, Saturday 07:30–16:00

An hour here at 08:15 costs you almost nothing: the Duomo is four minutes away, the Accademia six, and Mercato Centrale two minutes north for lunch. The one arrangement to avoid is trying to do the chapels and the basilica on the same morning without checking the day of the week — the museum shuts on Mondays and the church shuts on Sundays, so one day in seven, whichever one you pick, half the complex is closed.

If you are working through the sculpture, buy the 72-hour ticket and take these chapels first, the Bargello second and the Accademia last, when its afternoon slots are easier. Every Florence museum with hours and prices sits in one table, the three-day itinerary places this stop on a morning that is otherwise wasted, and the full attractions list has the rest; the rest of this Florence city guide starts from the homepage.