Description
The Casa Buonarroti is Michelangelo's house-museum in Florence, at Via Ghibellina 70: in the palace that his descendants turned into a tribute to their great ancestor you can see two of his early marbles, sketch models and drawings, and the frescoed rooms of the 1600s.
From the outside the palace is plain: only the portal stands out, with a bronze bust of Michelangelo above it, a copy of Daniele da Volterra's portrait.
On the first floor, in one room, are two works that explain how the genius was born: the Madonna of the Stairs, his first documented work, a refined bas-relief inspired by Donatello, and the Battle of the Centaurs, carved when he was only sixteen.
In another room is the large wooden model of the facade of San Lorenzo, Michelangelo's design that was never built. The museum also keeps the richest collection of the artist's preparatory sketch models, in wax and bronze, and a collection of drawings and studies.
The rooms of the 1600s were commissioned by his great-nephew Michelangelo the Younger: in the Gallery, dominated by a statue of the artist, the walls and ceiling tell his life, with a final apotheosis. Among the painters called to work on it is Artemisia Gentileschi.
The street alongside was called "Via dei Marmi Sudici," Street of the Dirty Marbles: for years big blocks of blackened marble lay there, waiting for Michelangelo, always traveling between Rome and Florence, to use them for one of his works.
It was he who bought a few small houses here in 1508, and he lived here with his nephew Leonardo during the work at San Lorenzo. The palace proper, however, was built by his descendants.
From 1612 Michelangelo the Younger turned the family house into a monument to his great-uncle. For centuries the Buonarroti kept everything with care, until the last heir, Cosimo, who in 1858 entrusted the palace and collections to a foundation: that is how the museum was born.
From the outside the palace is plain: only the portal stands out, with a bronze bust of Michelangelo above it, a copy of Daniele da Volterra's portrait.
On the first floor, in one room, are two works that explain how the genius was born: the Madonna of the Stairs, his first documented work, a refined bas-relief inspired by Donatello, and the Battle of the Centaurs, carved when he was only sixteen.
In another room is the large wooden model of the facade of San Lorenzo, Michelangelo's design that was never built. The museum also keeps the richest collection of the artist's preparatory sketch models, in wax and bronze, and a collection of drawings and studies.
The rooms of the 1600s were commissioned by his great-nephew Michelangelo the Younger: in the Gallery, dominated by a statue of the artist, the walls and ceiling tell his life, with a final apotheosis. Among the painters called to work on it is Artemisia Gentileschi.
The street alongside was called "Via dei Marmi Sudici," Street of the Dirty Marbles: for years big blocks of blackened marble lay there, waiting for Michelangelo, always traveling between Rome and Florence, to use them for one of his works.
It was he who bought a few small houses here in 1508, and he lived here with his nephew Leonardo during the work at San Lorenzo. The palace proper, however, was built by his descendants.
From 1612 Michelangelo the Younger turned the family house into a monument to his great-uncle. For centuries the Buonarroti kept everything with care, until the last heir, Cosimo, who in 1858 entrusted the palace and collections to a foundation: that is how the museum was born.