Michaelangelo's staircase

It is impossible (for me) to research the Medici Library in Florence (Laurentian Library) without covering the related topics of the Medici Family & their incredible history in Florence, and also the artists involved & architecture of the building in which the library is housed.  Michelangelo is undoubtedly the most well known of the architects involved and is responsible for the staircase that is much talked about. However, there are many more involved as well.  Also it is somewhat unique in that it is built in a cloister of the Medicean Basilica di San Lorenzo di Firenze under the patronage of the Medici pope, Clement VII.  

My research efforts have been intense to date, and I have a few issues to resolve in relation to the copying of images, so for this Blog, & at the present moment, there are no new images appearing - but I do hope to resolve this matter asap. Also interesting information and anecdotes have been found in various places. So here is an excerpt from Fodors Italy 2001 travelguide.

“Michelangelo the architect was every bit as original as Michelangelo the sculptor. Unlike Brunelleschi (the architect of San Lorenzo), however he was not obsessed with proportion & perfect geometry.  He was interested in experimentation & invention & in expressing a personal vision at times highly idosyncratic.  

It was never more idiosyncratic than in the Laurentian Library, begun in 1524 and finished in 1568, & its famous vestibolo (anteroom).  This strangely shaped anteroom has had scholars scratching their heads for centuries.  In a space more than two stories high, why did Michelangelo limit his use of columns and pilasters to the upper two-thirds of the wall? Why didn’t he rest them on strong pedestals instead of on huge decorative-curlicue scrolls, which rob them of all visual support? Why did he recess them into the wall, which makes them look weaker still? The architectural elements here do not stand firm & strong & tall, as inside the church next door; instead, they seem to be pressed into the wall as if into putty, giving the room a soft, rubbery look that is one of the strangest effects ever achieved by classical architecture.  It is almost as if Michelangelo purposely set out to defy his predecessors - intentionally to flout the conventions of the High Renaissance in order to see what kind of bizarre, mannered effect might result. His innovations were tremendously influential & produced a period of architectural experimentation, known as Mannerism, that eventually evolved into the Baroque.  (As his contemporary Giorgio Vasari put it, “Artisans have been infinitely & perpetually indebted to him because he broke the bonds & chains of a way of working that had become habitual by common usage”).

Nobody has ever complained about the anteroom’s staircase (best viewed head-on), which emerges from the library with the visual force of an unstoppable lava flow.  In its highly sculptural conception & execution, it is quite simply one of the most original & fluid staircases in the world.”

References. 

Lombardi, Matthew, 2006, Italy, Fodor's, New York. 

History

A brief history of Florence follows.  This is useful to allow for an understanding of the importance of the Medici family in the time of the commissioning of the Laurentian library. 


Though Florence (Firenze in Italian) can lay claim to a modest importance in the ancient world, it did not fully emerge into its own until the C11.  In the early 1200s, the city, like most of the rest of Italy, was rent by civic unrest.  Two factions, the Guelphs & the Ghibellines competed for power.  The Guelphs supported the papacy, & the Ghibellines supported the Holy Roman Empire.  Bloody battles tore Florence & other Italian cities apart.  Sometimes the Guelphs were in power & exiled the Ghibellines, at other times, the reverse was true.  By the end of the C13 the Guelphs ruled securely & the Ghibellines had been vanquished.  This didn’t end civic strife, however -  the Guelphs split into the Whites & the Blacks for reasons still debated by historians.  Dante, author of the Divine Comedy (arguably Italy’s greatest work of literature) was banished from Florence in 1301 because he was a White. 

Local merchants had organized themselves into guilds by 1250.  In that year they  made a landmark attempt at elective, republican rule.  Though the episode lasted only 10 years, it constituted a breakthrough in Western history.  Such a daring stance by the merchant class can be attributed to its new-found power, as Florence was emerging as one of the economic powerhouses in C13 Europe.  Florentines were papal bankers; they instituted the system of international letters of credit; & the gold florin became the international standard of currency.  With this economic strength came a building boom.  Public & private palaces, churches, & basilicas were built, enlarged or restructured.  Sculptors such as Donatello & Ghiberti were commissioned to decorate them; painters such as Giotto & Botticelli were commissioned to fresco their walls. 

Though ostensibly a republic, Florence was blessed (or cursed, depending on your point of view) with one very powerful family, the Medici, who came to prominence in the 1430s & were the de facto rulers of Florence for several hundred years.  The city flourished in the C15, when, under the leadership of the brilliant & shrewd Cosimo de’ Medici (or Cosimo the Elder), it became the most important centre of artistic & intellectual achievement since the Classical era.  The Medicis, who came from middle-class origins to produce Popes, Queens & powerful Dukes, oversaw Florence’s most prominent periods.  With money to spare, the family supported the arts, amassing grand collections while nurturing the masters.  Cosimo was patron to Donatello, Ghiberti & Brunelleschi.  His grandson, the charismatic Lorenzo the Magnificent, supported Botticelli & the young Michelangelo; Lorenzo’s son Pope Leo X, is known both for commissioning Raphael & excommunicating Martin Luther.   Florence produced “Renaissance men” in the arena of political thought as well.  Machiavelli’s The Prince, penned in an attempt to regain favour with the Medici clan when he was charged with conspiracy, praised their cold brutality & willingness to torture; his masterpiece is the source of the hardball political philosophy that the “ends justify the means”.   Lorenzo’s son, Piero (1471-1503) proved inept at handling the city’s affairs.  He was run out of town in 1494, & Florence briefly enjoyed its status as a republic while dominated by the Dominican friar Girolamo Savanarola (1452-98).  Savonarola preached against perceived pagan abuses & persuaded his followers to destroy their books, art, women’s wigs & jewellery in public “bonfires of the vanities”.  Eventually, he so annoyed the Pope that he was declared a heretic & hanged. 

After a decade of internal unrest, the republic fell & the Medici were recalled to power.  But even with the return of the Medici, Florence never regained its former prestige.  By the 1530s most of the major artistic talent had left the city – Michelangelo, for one, had settled in Rome.  The now-ineffectual Medici, eventually attaining the title of grand Dukes, remained nominally in power until the line died out in 1737, after which time Florence passed from the Austrians to the French & back again until the unification of Italy (1865-70), when it briefly became the capital under King Vittorio Emanuele II (1820-78). 


References.
Hale, J.R., c1977, Florence and the Medici, Phoenix Press, London.
Strathern, Paul, c2003, The Medici - Godfathers of the Renaissance, Jonathan Cape, London. 
http://galileo.rice.edu/lib/student_work/florence96/alexc/medici.html

Research Brief

Laurentian Library - Florence

I would like to research the Medici library in Florence, Italy as my research topic.  

The main areas that I would like to cover include the incredible history of the library &

the context of its building in the period of time. (Michelangelo was commissioned by 

the Medici Pope Clement VII to build the library in 1523 & construction started in 

1525, however Michelangelo left Florence in 1534, when other architects continued 

with his plans & verbal instructions). The architecture of the building will be covered. 

The cultural context of the library, and the items collected and the means used to 

collect these items will also be covered.  I will include information about how the 

library has evolved during the past centuries & also discuss how the library works & 

appears today. 

The story of the Medici family is very important to the history of the times & I will 

cover the members of the family that were involved in the establishment & working of 

the library.  

I will be using available books & literature from several public libraries to work on my 

project, but a majority of the information (I imagine) will be coming from on-line 

resources which I will search using databases from the State Library of Victoria, 

University Libraries & my local public library - as well as search engines available to 

me at home.  More information about search locations will be added as the project 

progresses.