San Lorenzo Florence: Basilica, Medici Chapels and Library
Updated: 1 day ago
Updated October 2026
San Lorenzo was the Medici family's parish church, and few places pack so much of their story into one block. My last visit turned into a whole afternoon of Donatello, Brunelleschi and Michelangelo.
The complex has three parts: the basilica, the Medici Chapels and the Laurentian Library. Together they are a crash course in the Renaissance; my guide to Renaissance Florence puts them in context.
The Basilica of San Lorenzo
From outside you see a rough, unfinished brick facade. Michelangelo designed a marble front that was never built. Inside, Brunelleschi's calm grey and white columns are pure Renaissance harmony.
Donatello's work
Look for Donatello's two bronze pulpits in the nave, and his painted roundels and bronze doors in the Old Sacristy. Donatello is buried in the church, close to his patron Cosimo the Elder. I love that friendship lasting even in death.
The Old Sacristy
Brunelleschi's Old Sacristy is small and perfect. Look up at the little dome over the altar, painted with the sky and stars as they appeared over Florence at a precise moment in the 1400s.
Paintings to find
Filippo Lippi's Annunciation is in the Martelli Chapel, and Rosso Fiorentino's Marriage of the Virgin is in the nave. Both reward a slow look.
The basilica is open Monday to Saturday. Hours vary through the year, so check before you go.
The Medici Chapels
Entered from the back of the church on Piazza Madonna degli Aldobrandini, this is a separate museum. The Chapel of the Princes is a domed hall lined in colored marble and semiprecious stone. The New Sacristy holds Michelangelo's tombs, with the reclining figures of Dawn, Dusk, Night and Day.
Open Tuesday to Sunday 8:15 to 18:50. Closed Monday.
Last entry 40 minutes before closing.
Free on the first Sunday of the month.
A special evening opening is planned for 30 November 2026, 17:15 to 21:00.
The museum has an elevator and is fully accessible.
The Laurentian Library
Up the stairs from the cloister is Michelangelo's library for the Medici books. Its vestibule staircase seems to pour down like lava, and the reading room still has his wooden desks. It opens Monday to Friday, 10:00 to 13:30, and is closed on weekends and holidays.
The neighborhood around it
Step outside and you are among the leather stalls and food halls of the San Lorenzo market. For lunch, I walk two minutes to the food hall upstairs; my Mercato Centrale guide has the counters I like.
How it compares with other churches
San Lorenzo is the Medici's church. For the city's great pantheon of tombs, see my guide to the Basilica of Santa Croce. For Fra Angelico's frescoes, visit the nearby San Marco convent museum. For a quiet church with Botticelli's tomb, try the church of Ognissanti.
Where to stay nearby
San Lorenzo is close to the station and the Duomo, practical and lively. See where to stay near San Lorenzo.
The cloister
Between the church and the library is a quiet two-level cloister with a garden of orange trees and box hedges.
Few visitors linger here, and it is one of my favorite places to sit for ten minutes in the middle of a busy day. From the upper loggia you get a close view of the dome of the Medici Chapels and the bell tower.
Michelangelo at San Lorenzo
San Lorenzo is where Michelangelo worked as an architect for the Medici. Pope Leo X, a Medici, asked him to design the facade, and he made a wooden model and spent years on it before the project was cancelled. He then built the New Sacristy, a chapel for Medici tombs, and the Laurentian Library.
In the New Sacristy, look for the reclining figures of Night, Day, Dawn and Dusk on the tombs of Giuliano and Lorenzo de' Medici, and the unfinished Madonna and Child.
Below the sacristy, a small room has charcoal drawings on the walls attributed to Michelangelo. It opens only for small timed visits, so check the museum's site if you want to see it.
A Medici family tree in stone
Walk from the Old Sacristy, built for Cosimo the Elder's parents in the 1420s, to the Chapel of the Princes, built for the Grand Dukes from 1604, and you see two centuries of Medici ambition.
The early family wanted harmony and modest grace. The later dukes wanted rare marble and semiprecious stones, with the coats of arms of Tuscan towns inlaid around the walls. It is the clearest lesson in Florence of how power changed taste.
Dress modestly for the basilica, with shoulders and knees covered, since it is still a working parish church.
Photography without flash is usually allowed in the church, but check the signs.
How I plan a visit
I start at the basilica when it opens, see the Old Sacristy and the cloister, then the library if it is a weekday morning. After lunch at the market, I visit the Medici Chapels, which stay open through the afternoon. That gives the whole complex a calm half day.
The Medici parish church
San Lorenzo is one of the oldest churches in Florence. A church stood here as early as 393, consecrated by Saint Ambrose of Milan, and for a time it served as the city's cathedral.
In the 1420s, Giovanni di Bicci de' Medici, the founder of the family fortune, asked Brunelleschi to rebuild it, and the Medici paid for the work over the following decades.
San Lorenzo became their parish church and their burial place. Cosimo the Elder is buried in the crypt beneath the altar, under a simple slab in the floor marked "Pater Patriae", father of his country. Standing over it, I always feel the scale of the family's ambition: from bankers to grand dukes to popes.
Brunelleschi's interior
Inside, Brunelleschi's design is a lesson in calm. Grey pietra serena columns and arches stand against white walls, laid out in clean geometric proportions.
It is one of the first churches built in the new Renaissance style, inspired by ancient Roman architecture. Compare it with the Gothic interiors of Santa Croce or Santa Maria Novella, and you see how much Florence changed in a century.
The unfinished facade
San Lorenzo's facade is still bare, rough brick. Pope Leo X, a Medici, asked Michelangelo to design a marble facade in 1516, and the artist spent years on plans and quarrying marble at Carrara and Seravezza before the contract was cancelled in 1520.
You can see his wooden model in Casa Buonarroti. The bare brick front is now part of San Lorenzo's character.
The Medici Chapels in more depth
The Chapel of the Princes, with its huge dome and walls of inlaid semi precious stones, was built as a mausoleum for the grand dukes from the early 1600s and took more than a century. The pietre dure work was made by the Opificio delle Pietre Dure, the grand ducal workshop that still exists as a world renowned restoration institute.
Michelangelo's New Sacristy, quieter and more moving, contains his tombs of Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino, and Giuliano, Duke of Nemours, with the figures of Night and Day, Dawn and Dusk. Under the sacristy, a small room holds drawings on the walls attributed to Michelangelo, made when he hid here in 1530, opened to visitors in small groups.
The market streets
Around the church, the San Lorenzo leather market fills the streets with stalls, and the Mercato Centrale, a 19th century iron and glass hall, sells food downstairs and runs a busy food court upstairs. I like to finish a visit with lunch there, where locals and visitors share long tables.
FAQ
Are the Medici Chapels inside San Lorenzo?
They are part of the same complex but have their own entrance and ticket at the back of the basilica.
When is the Laurentian Library open?
Monday to Friday mornings, 10:00 to 13:30.
Where is Donatello buried?
In the Basilica of San Lorenzo, near Cosimo the Elder.
How long do I need for San Lorenzo?
Half a day covers the basilica, the cloister, the library and the Medici Chapels.
Did Michelangelo design San Lorenzo's facade?
He designed one, but it was never built, which is why the facade is still rough brick.
About the author
I'm Jason GaNung, and I write every guide on Florence Life. I have spent extensive time in Florence over many trips, and I have stayed in many of the hotels and villas I cover, so my picks come from my own stays, not press releases. More about me.
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