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Behind the choir of the Basilica of San Lorenzo, the Medicean chapels house the tombs of the Medici family.
The Museum of the Medicean Chapels is an integral part of the structure of the Basilica of San Lorenzo, but it has a separate entrance in Piazza di Madonna degli Aldobrandini, at the back of the Basilica. The "Chapel of the Princes", Brunelleschi's masterpiece, is decorated with rare marble.
San Lorenzo was the official church of the Medici family and later their mausoleum. The design for the tomb was conceived in 1520 by the Florentine Michelangelo, who was at the height of his fame when he began work on the New Sacristy (known as Sagrestia Nuova) in the north transept. Cardinal Julius de' Medici, the future Pope Clement VII, who wanted to build a mausoleum for certain members of his family, was seduced and Lorenzo the Magnificent, like his brother John, and later Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino and Julian, Duke of Nemours, accepted the idea. Michelangelo worked on the sculptures of the sarcophagi until 1533, but the only ones he completed were the statues of Dukes Lorenzo and Julian, the allegories of Dawn and Dusk, Day and Night and the Madonna and Child set on the sarcophagus of the two Magnificents. The tomb and the statue of Lorenzo II, Duke of Urbino, is called, for its pose, the Thinker. Next to it are the saints Como and Damian. The sculptures have given rise to many interpretations, so much so that the symbolism has been worked on. The tombs, moreover, refer to the liberation of the soul after death, a philosophical concept closely linked to the spirituality of Michelangelo.
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