{"id":983,"date":"2024-01-05T20:00:43","date_gmt":"2024-01-05T19:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.arttrav.com\/?p=983"},"modified":"2024-01-08T03:29:36","modified_gmt":"2024-01-08T02:29:36","slug":"laurentian-library","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.arttrav.com\/florence\/laurentian-library\/","title":{"rendered":"The Architecture of Michelangelo’s Laurentian Library"},"content":{"rendered":"
[vc_row row_height_percent=”0″ override_padding=”yes” h_padding=”2″ top_padding=”5″ bottom_padding=”3″ overlay_alpha=”100″ gutter_size=”3″ column_width_percent=”100″ shift_y=”0″ z_index=”0″ row_height_use_pixel=””][vc_column column_width_use_pixel=”yes” gutter_size=”3″ overlay_alpha=”50″ shift_x=”0″ shift_y=”0″ medium_width=”0″ zoom_width=”0″ zoom_height=”0″ column_width_pixel=”800″][vc_column_text uncode_shortcode_id=”147905″]The Laurentian Library<\/strong>, part of the complex of the Basilica of San Lorenzo<\/strong>, was part of Pope Clement VII\u2019s plan to contribute to the glorification of the Medici family. Although the family had long moved away from the old Medici-Ricardi palace, San Lorenzo remained their parish church and was to become their mausoleum. What better place to house Lorenzo de\u2019 Medici\u2019s collection of books, and what better artist to conceive it than Michelangelo<\/strong>? The great Michelangelo\u2019s approach to the Laurentian Library is absolutely revolutionary, incorporating clever practical solutions with never-before-seen stylistic elements that open up the road towards Mannerism in architecture.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row row_height_percent=”0″ override_padding=”yes” h_padding=”2″ top_padding=”0″ bottom_padding=”0″ overlay_alpha=”100″ gutter_size=”3″ column_width_percent=”100″ shift_y=”0″ z_index=”0″ row_height_use_pixel=””][vc_column column_width_percent=”100″ gutter_size=”3″ overlay_alpha=”50″ shift_x=”0″ shift_y=”0″ medium_width=”0″ zoom_width=”0″ zoom_height=”0″ width=”1\/6″][vc_column_text uncode_shortcode_id=”170111″]Michelangelo’s Laurentian Library, Reading Room[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][vc_column column_width_use_pixel=”yes” gutter_size=”3″ overlay_alpha=”50″ shift_x=”0″ shift_y=”0″ medium_width=”0″ zoom_width=”0″ zoom_height=”0″ width=”5\/6″][vc_single_image media=”95540″ media_width_percent=”100″ media_title_uppercase=”” uncode_shortcode_id=”847033″][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row row_height_percent=”0″ override_padding=”yes” h_padding=”2″ top_padding=”3″ bottom_padding=”5″ overlay_alpha=”100″ gutter_size=”3″ column_width_percent=”100″ shift_y=”0″ z_index=”0″ row_height_use_pixel=””][vc_column column_width_use_pixel=”yes” gutter_size=”3″ overlay_alpha=”50″ shift_x=”0″ shift_y=”0″ medium_width=”0″ zoom_width=”0″ zoom_height=”0″ column_width_pixel=”800″][vc_column_text uncode_shortcode_id=”638257″]This article was prompted by a recent revisit to the Laurentian Library, which seems to be open again on a regular basis. I had the opportunity to photograph it and introduce it to a friend and colleague, which made me want to re-read my article about it on this blog. That act caused me to want to make significant changes as one might imagine would happen reading ones work from 2010. I\u2019ve integrated the old article, based on my teaching notes from an introductory class on Renaissance Art History and on further reading, with a few more facts and most of all aspects to make it more legible. I hope this article is useful both for readers at home and visitors to the space looking for direction.<\/p>\n

Laurentian Library: a history<\/h2>\n

The Laurentian Library<\/strong> was named in honor of Lorenzo de\u2019 Medici<\/strong> (aka Il Magnifico<\/em>), who was a great collector of ancient and modern texts and who greatly expanded Medici family\u2019s collection of books. Cosimo \u201cil Vecchio\u201d de\u2019Medici deserves credit for contributing the nucleus of 150 manuscripts (a number he increased from 60 at the start of his rule) but of all his descendants it is Lorenzo who contributed the most, especially of books in Latin and Greek. Everything was seized during the Medici\u2019s exile in 1494 and the books were sold to the Dominicans at San Marco; Cardinal Giovanni de\u2019 Medici, later Pope Leo X, managed to get them back and brought them to Rome before organizing the books \u2013 and the family\u2019s \u2013 triumphant re-entries into Florence.[\/vc_column_text][vc_single_image media=”95544″ caption=”yes” media_width_percent=”100″ uncode_shortcode_id=”129054″ title=”Dante”][vc_column_text uncode_shortcode_id=”162068″]The\u00a0idea for a library at San Lorenzo in Florence seems to go back to 1519, running alongside the creation of the New Sacristy or Medici Chapel by Michelangelo<\/a> in the same complex. The plan only really took off in 1523<\/strong> when Cardinal Giulio de\u2019 Medici<\/strong> became Pope Clement VII<\/strong>. The library was part of his plan to glorify the Medici in the area of Florence traditionally dominated by this family.<\/p>\n

Between 1524 and 1527, Michelangelo worked steadily on this wonderfully well-documented commission: letters between Michelangelo and the pope cover everything from lighting, site, cost, structural issues, design of doors, tabernacles, reading desks, ceiling decoration, etc. The project moved quickly thanks to the assistance of a large workshop and also because they were using easy-to-source local building materials, quite in contrast with most of Michelangelo\u2019s projects that required excavating Carrara marble. Political changes in the period 1527-34 brought the work to a halt and the artist permanently moved to Rome. The library was completed under Duke Cosimo I and opened in 1571.<\/p>\n

Surpassing Structural Challenges<\/strong><\/h2>\n[\/vc_column_text][vc_single_image media=”984″ caption=”yes” media_width_percent=”100″ uncode_shortcode_id=”883387″][vc_column_text uncode_shortcode_id=”184833″]At the Laurentian Library, Michelangelo had to surpass interesting structural challenges: the monastic complex already existed (with monks\u2019 dormitories and adjacent church) and the rest of the neighbourhood was already built up so there was only one place to put the library, and that was above the extant structure<\/strong>. Of course, said building wasn\u2019t initially intended to hold a whole other floor, so he had to make the structure particularly light, which impacted the choice of materials. The upper floor location was also the most logical choice for three important reasons: first, to be close to the monks\u2019 dormitories, second, to take advantage of natural light without being blocked by nearby buildings, and finally, to reside high up in case of floods.<\/p>\n

The Laurentian Library is composed of two very distinct areas<\/strong>: a \u201cvestibule\u201d that is a tall ante-chamber, giving access to the horizontally disposed \u201creading room\u201d. You can see the library perched above the second level of the cloister of San Lorenzo, a slightly taller building, three window-bays wide, giving way to a lower building to its left.<\/p>\n

The Laurentian Library Vestibule<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Have you ever seen a room whose only role is to contain a stairwell? Well, now you have. It\u2019s tall, it\u2019s not very deep, it\u2019s kind of dark and it contains all sorts of weird features.[\/vc_column_text][vc_single_image media=”87742″ media_width_percent=”100″ uncode_shortcode_id=”499046″ media_link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.contexttravel.com%2Fregions%2Fitaly%3Fref%3D7yxufio3|target:_blank”][vc_single_image media=”95535″ caption=”yes” media_width_percent=”100″ uncode_shortcode_id=”103083″][vc_column_text uncode_shortcode_id=”940280″]This space is much discussed in modern scholarship. The discourse is focused on Michelangelo\u2019s bold architectural innovations, in which he breaks with normal Renaissance usage, moving into the subsequent period of art history as we currently define it, Mannerism. As John Shearman writes in his seminal 1967 treatise<\/a>, Mannerism<\/em>: \u201cThe principal development here is an application of licence to all architectural members<\/strong>, major and minor. It is the first building that seems to have been turned outside in, for the massive treatment of the interior walls belongs by tradition to exteriors.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the examples of this licence is the use of columns<\/strong>, which are in fact here in pairs. Contrary to logical usage, they are actually embedded into the wall (as are the pilasters in here, but that\u2019s a bit more normal). For Shearman the resulting effect is that \u201cit seems that the wall is squeezed forward by the order, or as if the architecture had become organic<\/strong>, capable of movement.\u201d<\/p>\n

Below these double columns are giant volutes <\/strong>(scrolls) that seem to hang there like tongues \u2013 they, too, serve no purpose. And in fact they are rather too large for the space, so that in the corners they, as James Ackerman says, \u201cseem to mate rather than meet<\/strong>\u201d.[\/vc_column_text][vc_single_image media=”95537″ media_width_percent=”100″ uncode_shortcode_id=”130421″][vc_column_text uncode_shortcode_id=”197196″]The stairway itself is also particularly impractical and unusual. I have always felt that it looks like the flow of lava spilling down onto the terracotta floor. Built in pietra serena by Ammannati in 1559, can you believe that Michelangelo wanted to make the stairwell in walnut wood<\/strong> like the reading desks in the room next door, but this idea was discarded because the squeaking would have been distracting to the studious monks!<\/p>\n

In the current pietra serena version, if you walk up the central area, the curved fronts finish in curly cues that are extremely effective in catching shoes. There is a \u201chand rail\u201d of sorts down the center, but there is no rail or protection at the sides \u2013 there is no way this would pass any building code nowadays! It\u2019s as if the staircase was conceived of as a freestanding work of sculpture rather than functional architecture.[\/vc_column_text][vc_single_image media=”95538″ caption=”yes” media_width_percent=”100″ uncode_shortcode_id=”153631″][vc_column_text uncode_shortcode_id=”610101″]Not only modern scholars talked about this space \u2013 of course Vasari would have to have his say. Vasari worried that misunderstanding Michelangelo\u2019s example could lead to bad architecture<\/strong> and said: \u201cCertain plebeian and presumptuous architects lacking in disegno <\/em>have in our times produced all their monstrous things, worse than the German<\/strong>.\u201d Michelangelo was generally praised by contemporaries for his \u201cgood judgment\u201d in breaking the rules of ancient architectural theory in this space, while other architects were heavily criticized for following his example \u2013 probably because they were not ever fully able to do it \u201cright\u201d.<\/p>\n

Michelangelo\u2019s Medici Chapel: Light as symbolic element<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n