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Nothing remains visible of the original building and its medieval additions, covered by the new work ordered by the Chapter in the late 14th century.
Giovanni di Bicci de' Medici, who had commissioned the sacristy and a chapel from Filippo Brunelleschi, invited the architect to submit a project for the entire church. Work began on the transept in 1421. Brunelleschi supervised the first phase, centred on the transept and the so-called Old Sacristy, completed in 1428. The construction of the nave was overseen by his assistant Antonio Manetti, with the support of Cosimo il Vecchio, son of Giovanni.
There began such a close connection between the Basilica and the Medici family as to make San Lorenzo into the family church. In sign of this, Cosimo il Vecchio's tomb was set up inside the underground pier, visible through a grating in front of the high altar, which tradition indicates as the grave of the martyr St Laurence, to whom the church is dedicated.
Other Medici projects completed the building history of San Lorenzo. Pope Leo X Medici commissioned the New Sacristy from Michelangelo in 1520. Another Medici pope, Clement VII, ordered the vestibule and the reading room of the celebrated Laurentian Library, as well as the counter-façade of the church with its balcony for the exposition of relics, both by Michelangelo.
The second branch of the Medici family, the one headed by Cosimo I, was responsible for the grandiose Chapel of the Princes. Begun in the early 17th century it was planned as a family mausoleum for the Medici, and as a celebration of Grand Ducal power.
With the suppression of the religious foundations in the later 19th century, the Laurentian Library was legally separated from the church of San Lorenzo, and the Museum of the Medici Chapels was instituted, comprising the New Sacristy, the Chapel of the Princes and the Medici-Lorraine burial area. In 1907, the Opera Medicea Laurenziana was set up, in order to restore unity and seemliness to the Laurentian monuments'.
The most important work of art is undoubtedly the architecture. Just how closely the actual building adhered to Brunelleschi's plan, it is impossible to say. We can however recognise at San Lorenzo all the elements of renaissance architecture, that are here employed for the first time in a large-scale religious building. We enter an architectural space conceived in the modern manner, with total legibility of construction.
The vertical and horizontal load-bearing structures, the columns, pilasters and arches are distinguished both in colour and material from the complementary structures, walls and windows. The legibility of the architectural space, based on the alternation of grey and white, the mathematical and geometrical proportions between the various portions of the building, and the diffused lighting which creates no areas of deep shadow, confer on the architectural space of San Lorenzo and exceptional harmonious beauty.
San Lorenzo contains masterpieces by Donatello, including the sarcophagus of the Martelli family, and the two bronze pulpits. The sarcophagus, in the form of a wickerwork basket, was commissioned by Roberto Martelli around 1464, for the family chapel located between the left transept and the nave.
Also dating from the 1460s are the reliefs commissioned by Cosimo il Vecchio for the presbytery area, which were left unfinished by Donatello and his assistants. On the occasion of the visit of Pope Leo X Medici, the reliefs were provisionally assembled. The were set up on the two pulpits in the course of the 17th century, with the addition of extra panels carved out of wood and treated to imitate bronze. The arches were mounted on columns and set up on either side of the nave, near the transept, where they are still to be seen. The sculptures forming the left-hand pulpit represent scenes from the Passion and Death of Christ. The right-hand pulpit shows in a single scene, divided by symbolic doorways, the Descent into Hell, the Resurrection and the Ascension. The cycle is completed by individual panels showing the Maries at the Tomb and the Martyrdom of St Laurence.
Among the numerous paintings that adorn the altars and chapels of the church, tempering with their bright colors the austere whites and greys of the architecture, we notice unusual iconographical features in the Annunciation in the Martelli chapel, painted by Filippo Lippi around 1420.
The small square-planned building, surmounted by a hemispherical dome, in a synthetic and effective expression of the early-renaissance aesthetic. It has a scarsella or miniature apse, also squarred-planned and vaulted. It was designed by Filippo Brunelleschi and finished in 1428. The sculptural decoration was, for the most part, executed by Donatello between 1428 and 1432. The string-course cornice has a frieze with alternating cherubim and seraphim of polychrome terracotta in red, blue and gold. The roundels in the sprandels of the cupola have scenes from the Life of St John the Evangelist, done in a vey low relief, in stucco painted in pale tones of cream, brick-red and blue. Donatello completed the decoration above the string-course cornice with four roundels placed in the lunettes, showing the Four Evangelists, also in polychrome stucco, but in more traditional style with brighter colors and higher relief.
The artist executed, between 1440 and 1443, the two sets of bronze doors surmounted by aedicules of polychrome stucco with St Laurence and St Stephen (left) ans St Cosmas and St Damian (right). |
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