“Rather heavenly than earthly” wrote Giorgio Vasari about Michelangelo already before his death, meaning that his soul, his mind and his hand had a divine quality, due to the ability to give shape to an ideal of beauty, which went even beyond Nature.

At the Medici Chapel Museum the art of Michelangelo can be admired in one of his greatest masterpieces, the New Sacristy, an entire chapel designed and built by him – both as to the architecture and sculptures. The museum consists of two chapels of the Basilica of San Lorenzo under the patronage of the Medici family: of them, the New Sacristy was commissioned to Michelangelo in 1521 by the first Medici Pope, Leo X, son of Lorenzo the Magnificent, and realized, amidst a thousand vicissitudes, under the pontificate of the second Medici Pope, Clement VII. Here, two funerary monuments face each other: that of Giuliano, Duke of Nemours and that of Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino, two scions of the family who died in their prime. It is to their memory that Michelangelo created their ideal portraits, the first (Giuliano) as a captain ready for action, and the other (Lorenzo) in the role of a leader immersed in reflection. Below them, on the sarcophagi, are the grandiose nudes of Day, Night, Dawn and Twilight, symbols of the Time of mortal that the soul must abandon to achieve immortality. The sense of their superhuman physicality is made even more intense by non-finite technique, and makes these splendid bodies true emblems of a Beauty that goes beyond the earthly world.
The Bargello National Museum also hosts several works by Michelangelo: the youthful Drunken Bacchus, created in competition with the beauty of classical statuary; the ‘Pitti Tondo’, a round relief of the Madonna and Child where the non-finite technique is experimented for an atmospheric rendering; the bust of Brutus and the unfinished David-Apollo.

Around these works by Michelangelo, an entire hall is dedicated to the masterpieces of the Florentine sculptors of the 1500s and to the different ideals of beauty they cultivated, in the awareness of an impossible comparison with the genius of Michelangelo. Dating back to the beginning of the century are Giovanfrancesco Rustici’s Brawl of Knights, inspired by Leonardo da Vinci’s Battle of Anghiari, and the Bacchus by Jacopo Sansovino, who, like Raphael, offers a serene and radiant interpretation of ancient models.

Works of the mid-century are Bartolomeo Ammannati’s Adam and Eve, whose sense of elegance is very far from the powerful style of Michelangelo, and Vincenzo Danti’s Honor Defeating Deceit, where the bodies sinuously interweave in a sophisticated composition. A group of sculptures by Benvenuto Cellini stands out in the Bargello Museum, such as the ephebic Narcissus with his sensitive and delicate beauty, or the base of the famous Perseus with the head of Medusa of Piazza della Signoria, rich in mysterious grotesque carvings and adorned with four sensual and elegant nudes of classical deities.

Equally famous are the works by Giambologna from the late-1500s, like the Flying Mercury, perfect as to the anatomy and balance of pose, his foot resting on the breath of a wind. On the second floor, the rich collection of small bronzes by Giambologna (and by many other sculptors) expands the panorama of the forms of beauty researched and produced by the artists of the High Renaissance in Florence.