1o Day AM. We suggest you to start your itinerary seeing the place where Michelangelo Buonarroti raised and lived with his family. The building, which is an apartment house nowadays is located in Via dei Bentaccordi (corner Via Anguillara). You can easily recognize it because of a large marble inscription on the wall.
Then continue towards the
Buonarroti House, bought by Michelangelo for his nephew Leonardo and which his heirs transformed into a sort of Museum in honour of their great ancestor. Two original marble reliefs by Michelangelo are shown here: "Madonna with Child" and the "Battle of Centaurs and Lapites", besides a few interesting models of his most famous statues. After this make your way to the
Bargello Palace to see on the ground-floor on the building Bacchus, Brutus, Apollo (David) and the "Madonna teaching the Child Jesus and the little St. John to read".
1oDay PM. Why don't you take a walk to the
Signoria Square and have a look at the spot where the original statue of David was before being moved to the
Academy of Fine Arts (1873) and replaced with the copy?
Then enter the
Uffizi Gallery to see the "Holy Family" (or Tondo Doni) the only painting work by Michelangelo in Florence.
2oDay AM. Enjoy your day starting with the masterpieces by Michelangelo in the
Medici Chapels (Day-Night - Down and Dusk). At the cash, when you buy your entrance admission, we suggest you to book for a visit (every 30 minutes) to the small basement room where, in 1978 a number of charcoal drawings (by Michelangelo and pupils) were discovered on the walls.
After all this (one hours and half apx.), enter the
Church of San Lorenzo to admire its interior façade originally designed by Michelangelo. Don't miss to go to the
Laurentian Library next to the church to see the entrance vestibule and the staircase projected by Michelangelo. Then pass in front the
Medici Palace (you can visit the courtyard) where the young artist lived for a period of about four years till the death of his patron Lorenzo the Magnificent in 1492. Keeping along the Via Cavour you get to San Marco Square, where the so-called Medici Gardens (Art School founded by Lorenzo the Magnificent and attended by the young Michelangelo: master-teacher was the sculptor Bertoldo) were located. The space where the school used to be is now occupied by a flower-nursery and shop and you can identify it for a long grey wall (giving onto the Square) with cypress trees behind it.
At this point you might have a break.
2oDay PM. After lunch it's time to make your way to the
Accademia of Fine Arts to see the highlight by Michelangelo: the statue of David!
You can continue your Michelangelo's tour with the visit to the
Museum Opera del Duomo where the third original Pietá by Michelangelo is shown as well as some of the original panels from the Golden Doors by Lorenzo Ghiberti.
Michelangelo Buonarroti himself, being asked one day, what he thought of Ghiberti's doors, said :"they are so beautiful, they are worth being the entrance gates to Paradise".
For opening hours of Museums and Churches, see the Museums TTables.
