Two reliefs by a teenager

Michelangelo bought this house for his family, though he barely lived here himself. His nephew and later descendants turned it into a tribute, with rooms full of paintings about his life, all paid for out of the earnings his name could bring in.

The reason to go in hangs on the first floor: two marble reliefs he carved as a teenager, while he was still in the garden by San Marco where this walk began. One shows a Madonna on a staircase, carved flat and quiet in the manner of Donatello, and the other a tangle of fighting figures where you can already see everything he would later do with bodies in motion.

He was around sixteen when he made them, and he kept them with him his whole life while he sold or gave away almost everything else.

The museum needs a ticket and it is smaller than the big ones, so half an hour is plenty.

The large square with the striped church lies at the end of this street.