Address: Via Ghibellina, 70
Bought by Michelangelo in 1508, this house in via Ghibellina
was subsequently transformed, enlarged and inhabited by the
artist's descendents until the late nineteenth century. The
best-known of these was the artist's nephew, Michelangelo
Buonarroti the Younger who transformed the house into a museum to
his uncle. In 1609 he bought the adjoining houses and in 1612
began the work necessary to transform it into a splendid palace,
employing some of the best known painters of the time.
In the four large rooms of the first floor Buonarroti planned a
decorative ensemble during the first decades of the seventeenth
century; Buonarroti, a cultured man of letters, planned the
programme, to be executed by artists such as Bilivert, Jacopo da
Empoli, Matteo Rosselli, Passignano, Artemisia Gentileschi and
Giovanni da San Giovanni. The paintings illustrate Michelangelo's
life from his birth to his funeral in San Lorenzo, and include his
encounters with the Popes, his plans and allegories of his
virtues.
In the museum, apart from some antiques from the original
collection are some early works by the master. These form the
main attraction of the collection, which was opened to the public
in the mid-nineteenth century by Cosimo Buonarroti and recently
reorganized by its director Charles de Tolnay, one of the
foremost Michelangelo scholars. On show are the famous Madonna of
the Stairs, Michelangelo's earliest work, executed at fifteen
while he was studying under the protection of Lorenzo the
Magnificent, the slightly later Battle of the Centaurs with its
many reminiscenses of antique sculpture and contemporary Tuscan
work (1490-1492).
Apart from these undisputed masterpieces there are several models
for sculpture attributed to Michelangelo (Hercules and Cacus,
torsoes of River Gods and so on) and the wooden model for the
facade of San Lorenzo made in
1517. Some of the master's drawings are also found here,
including a study for the Battle of Cascina, studies of heads, a
Madonna and Child and the plan of S. Giovanni dei Fiorentini in
Rome.
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