BASILICA OF SAN LORENZO

Basilica of San Lorenzo stands on a large platform with stairs in the square behind Palazzo Medici. Right in front of the unfinished façade, you can see the 16th-century monument to the leader Giovanni dalle Bande Nere, who is depicted sitting. It might be a bit hard for you to notice the statue in the chaos of the bustling clothing and accessories market in the square.

The great cross-shaped church before you dates back to the first half of the 1400s. It was commissioned by the Medici family and designed by the great Filippo Brunelleschi, the same master who designed the Cathedral's dome and the Old Sacristy to your left. The basilica's construction was slow-going: so much so that it was still unfinished when the architect died. About a century later the design of the façade was entrusted to another sacred mastermind, Michelangelo. The great sculptor wanted to use marble from the Pietrasanta quarries for its façade, but Pope Leo X de' Medici demanded that he use marble from Serravezza, which had no connecting roads with Florence. This greatly increased costs and time-frames, and in the end San Lorenzo remained without a façade, just as you see it now.