Michelangelo intended the Vestibule to be a dark prelude to the brightness of the Reading Room. The vertical tensions of the vestibule seem to quiet down in the long hall of the big Reading Room.
- Map Location.
- Top Searches!
- Laurentian Mountains?
Here the guiding principle of the design is the maximum use made of the lateral sources of light. The staircase remained incomplete until the beginning of the 20th century, when finally the facade was accomplished with its series of blind windows. On the same occasion, the ceiling was covered by a cloth painted by the Bolognese artist Giacomo Lolli , depicting motifs imitating the carved wooden ceiling of the Reading Room.
The Reading Room , which unlike the Vestibule develops horizontally , hosts two series of wooden benches , the so-called plutei , which functioned as lecterns, as well as book shelves. The manuscripts and printed books lay horizontally on the lecterns and shelves, and were distributed by subject ; the wooden panels placed on one side of each bench listed the titles of the items chained therein.
Banque Laurentienne - Laurentian bank
This display was maintained until the beginning of the 20th century, when the manuscripts were transferred downstairs, in the vaults were they are still housed. The linden ceiling was carved in by Giovan Battista del Tasso and Antonio di Marco di Giano, following earlier drawings by Michelangelo. The floor , instead, in red and white terracotta , was realized in by Santi Buglioni according to a design by Tribolo. Its centre echoes the ornamental and symbolic designs found in the ceiling, which allude to the Medici dynasty.
The splendid stained-glass windows , which were the last part of the Library to be accomplished, display an ornamental array of Medici heraldry referring to Clement VII and Cosimo I. The refined decorations combine grotesque motifs , arms, and emblems. Now the room is employed for seminars, meetings, and inaugurations. The Library is today considered one of the most valuable collections of ancient manuscripts in the world. Subsequently, Lorenzo completed the collection with the acquisition of, above all, Greek texts. The library followed the ups and downs of the Medici family.
In , following the sentence of exile imposed on Piero the Unfortunate and the banishment from Florence of the whole of the Medici family, the library was confiscated by the republican government and absorbed in toto into the library of the San Marco monastery. Its collection includes the first complete manuscript of the Latin Vulgate Bible the Bible Amiatina , original manuscripts on the founding of the Florentine Renaissance , some ancient papyrus and the oldest manuscript of the Corpus Juris Civilis issued by the emperor Justinian.
The manuscripts were stored on shelves fastened onto the back of benches and were made available to the public, albeit safeguarded by means of solid chains. They were organized by subject , and wooden tablets were used as a table of contents. This arrangement was maintained until the early s, at which point the books were moved into the current depository.
- Épopée indienne (French Edition)?
- A Phantom Agony -- the story of the first unicorn (The Hunt of the Unicorn Book 1).
- The Silvered Cage: A Scientific Murder Mystery!
- The Laurentian;
- Laurentian.
Today, the Laurentian Library functions as a public library and is owned by the Italian State. It is also a center of documentation and literature search of primary importance in the world. This post was originally published on September 30, , and has been updated and enriched on April 16, We also offer a guided Inferno walking tour , which follows the footsteps of Robert and Sienna, as well as an an eBook with an audio version. Your email address will not be published. He also founded the library at the "Badia Fiesolana". He was assisted in his acquisitions for this collection by Vespasiano da Bisticci who provided copysts with classical texts for subsequent diffusion.
The original nucleus of volumes was then added to by Cosimo's son Piero. Subsequentely Lorenzo completed the collection with the acquisition of, above all, Greek texts. The library followed the ups and downs of the Medici family. In , following the sentence of exile imposed of Piero the Unfortunate and the banishment from Florence of the whole of the Medici family, the library was confiscated by the republican government and absorbed in toto into the library of the San Marco monastery.
His successor Clement VII Giulio de' Medici, son of Giuliano di Piero brought the collection back to Florence in and immediately commissioned Michelangelo to design a library to house it. This was to be another very important project for Michelangelo, because he made preparatory drawings for it and concerned himself with its construction for ten years before his definitive departure for Rome in However, he did not relinquish control of the project, monitoring the phases of building as the work was continued by his followers Giorgio Vasari and Bartolommeo Ammannati, who also completed Michelangelo's New Sacristy and who were assiduous in following the master's plan.
Architecture
The decoration of the library went hand in hand with its actual construction the ceiling dates to , the flooring from , the windows from thus making the library one of the most unified works of the High Renaissance or should we say of Mannerism to be found in Florence. The vast reading-room is preceded by the dramatic entrance vestibule called the "ricetto" planned in elevation by Michelangelo and built in that characteristic Florentine two-one combination of grey sand-stone elements on white plaster.
Here Michelangelo's energetic and powerfully modelled architectural vocabulary free from the constraints of the Brunelleschian style imposed on him, to a certain extent, in the New Sacristy emerges in the tabernacle niches, the paired columns, the portal, all imbued with a feeling of solid strength. This dynamism, concentrated on the walls of the vestibule, downflows in the fantastical staircase built by Ammannati in , following a clay model prepared by Michelangelo.
Laurentian Library
It consists of three flights of steps; the outer ones are quadrangular shaped, the central ones convex, and the bottom three steps are completely elliptical. The staircase is, then, an explosion of originality which fits perfectly with the fanciful character of the Mannerist style of architecture. The vertical tensions of the vestibule seem to quieten down in the long hall of the big reading-room.
Here the guiding principle of the design is the maximum use made of the lateral sources of light. The books were not kept in the bookshelves. Instead, the outside of the reading seats had lists attached to them, showing the books to be found in that particular seat. The books themselves were chained to the reading seat.