Visit: Cappelle Medicee, Piazza di Madonna Degli Aldobrandini 6, 50123, Florence Italy
The Medici Chapels were built as the personal sepulcher of the Medici family in the Basilica of San Lorenzo, which was considered by the Medici as their private church.
In 1520, Cardinal Giulio de' Medici (who would become Pope Clemente VII) together with Pope Leo X commissioned Michelangelo Buonarroti with the building of the Sagrestia Nuova as the mausoleum for the Medici family. The chapel was to form a pendant to Filippo Brunelleschi's Sagrestia Vecchia. Construction began in March 1520 and was finally completed by Giorgio Vasari in 1546, after Michelangelo had left Florence for Rome in 1534.
The chapel was to hold the tombs of the two 'Magnifici' and the two 'Capitani' of the Medici: Lorenzo il Magnifico, his brother Giuliano de' Medici, Lorenzo Duke of Urbino, and Giuliano Duke of Nemours (the third son of the Magnifico).