Medici Laurentian Library

The main collection of this library had time to become a trophy, monastic property, and a Roman collection before a hall was built for it above the cloister of San Lorenzo.

Lorenzo de' Medici, who directed Florentine politics and collected books for the work of humanists, especially sought Greek texts. He commissioned copyists to produce works that were missing and died convinced that the collection remained incomplete. His son Piero de' Medici continued the purchases, but in fourteen ninety-four he lost the city, the palace, and the library all at once. After his concessions to the French king Charles VIII, who had invaded Florence, the townspeople expelled the Medici. The family books were confiscated and sold to the Dominicans of the Convent of San Marco.

At the first inspection, about two hundred manuscripts were missing: Lorenzo had lent some out for reading. The authorities demanded the books back and threatened fines, but recovered only a few. The monks preserved the rest.

Giovanni Medici, Lorenzo's younger son, a cardinal and the future Pope Leo X, undertook to recover the collection. In fifteen oh eight, he bought the books back from the Dominicans and took them to the family palace in Rome. After his death, his cousin Giulio Medici, who became Pope Clement VII, ordered the collection sent back to Florence. He needed a permanent, publicly accessible repository beside the family church, where the books could be arranged by subject and issued to scholars.

In fifteen twenty-four, Clement commissioned Michelangelo to build a library above the existing rooms of the canons of San Lorenzo. The architect had to place a new story on old walls, so the long reading room turned out light and narrow. Michelangelo built into it two rows of wooden plutei—benches that served at once as seats, lecterns, and book chests. The manuscripts lay horizontally inside them: theology separate from astronomy, history from poetry. A label on the end of each bench stated which books were kept there. Thus the private collection received an order designed for readers.

Clement died in fifteen thirty-four. In the same year, Michelangelo left Florence forever, leaving the library unfinished. Later, he sent a wax model of the staircase from Rome, and Bartolomeo Ammannati made it in gray stone. Neither the patron nor the architect saw the opening. The first readers were admitted here under Duke Cosimo I de' Medici in fifteen seventy-one; about three thousand manuscripts then occupied the plutei and received new bindings bearing the Medici coats of arms.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the custodians removed the manuscripts from the benches to secure storage. The wooden plutei and their labels remained in place, while the collection grew to about eleven thousand manuscripts. The word “Medici” in the name refers to the family whose books formed its core. “Laurentian” comes from the Basilica of San Lorenzo, above whose cloister the hall stands, not from the name of Lorenzo de' Medici.