The little room beneath the chapel

Under the floor of this chapel lies a room of roughly ten by three metres, without windows, opened up in 1975 during a search for a new exit. The walls turned out to be covered in charcoal drawings: legs, faces, a torso, sketches that resemble work he carried out elsewhere.

The story around it fits his life. In 1530 the Florentine republic fell, the one whose defences Michelangelo had designed, and the returning Medici had little patience for that. He went into hiding for a time, and by the accepted account it was here, with a friendly priest who let him use this cellar.

Above, in the sacristy he designed, two Medici lie on their tombs with four figures at their feet: Day and Night, Dawn and Dusk. They are the most famous times of day in the history of art, made for two men who amounted to little in real life.

You need a ticket for the chapels, and the cellar room can only be seen with a separate booking and in small groups.

We cross the cathedral square, towards the museum that sits behind the dome.