In 1975, workers pried open a locked storage room beneath Michelangelo’s New Sacristy at the Medici Chapels in Florence. Under layers of dirt, the walls revealed dozens of fragile charcoal sketches.
The director quickly claimed they were by Michelangelo, drawn in 1530 while he was hiding after siding with the anti-Medici republic.
Maybe. Maybe not. Scholars still argue about the attribution.
But the moment Michelangelo’s name was attached to the room, everything changed. The sketches went from obscure markings on plaster to one of Florence’s most debated Renaissance discoveries.
The secret room wasn’t open to the general public until 2023. Let’s take a look at why these drawings are so intriguing.
Quick Tips:
- The secret room is open to 100 visitors per week.
- You can only remain in the room 15 minutes, 4 people per time slot.
- It’s reservation only (and you can’t reserve more than 2 spots at one time). Book online here well in advance.
- Not open to children under 10.
- Access is only via a narrow staircase.
- It will take your eyes a few minutes to adjust to the dim lighting.
- You can also see the Prince’s Chapel and Michelangelo’s tomb sculptures in the New Sacristy on your visit.
Michelangelo’s Secret Room
Rediscovery
In 1975, Paolo Dal Poggetto, director of Florence’s Medici Chapels Museum, was hoping to create a new and more efficient exit for visitors to the site when he happened upon a trapdoor.
Hidden under a wardrobe, it led down into a forgotten room once used to store coal until it was sealed in 1955.
He had the plaster walls of the room stripped away, revealing a stunning sight: the room was covered in dozens of charcoal and chalk drawings.
Dal Poggetto was convinced Michelangelo was the artist behind the works, sketching them as he hid from a death sentence in 1530.
Michelangelo’s Hiding Place
In 1530, Michelangelo disappeared. Why?
The Medici, once his patrons, had clawed their way back into Florence after a brutal siege. Three years earlier, Michelangelo had backed the republic and even helped fortify the city against them. Not exactly a resume enhancer once the family returned to power.
Pope Clement VII, born Giulio de’ Medici, allegedly put a price on his head. Whether it was a formal death sentence or a very loud threat, Michelangelo took it seriously enough to vanish.
For roughly two months, he allegedly hid in a cramped, windowless room beneath the Medici complex at San Lorenzo. A space more storage closet than studio.
Eventually, pragmatism won. The Medici needed him. The order was lifted.
Michelangelo resumed work on the New Sacristy and the Medici tombs. Within a few years he’d be back in Rome painting The Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel.
Some scholars doubt the story. Would Europe’s most famous artist really hole up in a dingy crawlspace? Maybe.
This is the same man who slept in his clothes, ate little, and treated comfort as a distraction. Compared to the scaffolding and plaster dust of the Sistine Chapel, the hideout may not have seemed especially grim.
And if the charcoal sketches on those walls are his, they read like a man thinking with urgency. Figures form and dissolve, lines search, ideas rehearsed in secret while politics raged above his head.
What Are The Secret Drawings?
The secret room is underneath the New Sacristy in the Medici Chapels, and may have been a crypt.
I’m not sure how “secret” it really was because there is a window to the outside visible from the street. The window is closed now for preservation. But there is a railing with social LED lighting to help you see.
The room is about 32 feet by 10 feet, so not very large. The ceiling is only 8 feet high, giving it a bunker like feel.
It’s covered with 200 individual sketches and images on four walls.
Among the drawings are nudes, faces, studies of various body parts, and other marks. In 1975, Dal Poggetto attributed 97 of them to Michelangelo, some figurative and some architectural.
Starting at the left and moving clockwise, you’ll see:
- Left wall: muscular nude figures and fragmentary sketches. Some echo poses from the tomb sculptures of Dawn and Dusk in the New Sacristy. And there’s a head that looks like Laocoon.
- Far end wall: a female figure identified as “Leda” in a sinuous pose and some Sistine Chapel style figures like the Ignudi.
- Right wall: standing male nudes, a sketch of a resurrected figure, profile heads, etc.
- Wall near entrance: smaller sketches, anatomical fragments, and scribbles.
Attribution to Michelangelo
Are these drawings by Michelangelo or just virtuoso doodles by his workshop assistants?
Since the museum director’s discovery over 50 years ago, scholars have continued to debate which drawings, if any, the master created.
Still, it’s clear that some of the sketches seem like preparatory drawings for the Medici tombs Michelangelo completed later.
There is a head drawing, life size, that I knew I had seen before. It’s clearly a representation of the face of Laocoön in the Vatican Museums. The face of agony, the hair, the beard, are unmistakable.
Michelangelo was there at the discovery of the famous sculpture, and was inspired by it. But does that mean he actually drew this image?
The visage was famous; everyone knew it. And the draftsmanship on the wall isn’t terribly good. So, just because the drawing is Michelangelo-esque, doesn’t make it an autograph Michelangelo.
One of the more higher quality drawings, right next to the head, is a male torso and a foreshortened foot. Michelangelo was known to draw isolated anatomical parts like the foot.
The end wall has a series of drawings. The most prominent figure is a female who’s been identified as Leda of the Leda and the Swan myth. (Though there’s no swan here.)
The profile of a face to the right is lovely. It’s Leda’s face.
It could definitely be by Michelangelo. Or by someone who knew his sketching style and ideas.
Some scholars think the drawing of a pair of legs (directly above) could be by Michelangelo. It looks like a study, an artist working out an idea.
They’re recognizable as the legs of Michelangelo’s effigy of Guiliano de’ Medici upstairs. But it’s perhaps a bit too formulaic to be Michelangelo’s work.
Just to the right of that ensemble is a horizontal drawing of a sort of flying figure. It has a a muscular back and upraised leg.
Some say that this is similar to a mythological drawing of Phaeton falling from a sun chariot by Michelangelo that’s in the British Museum.
There’s a similarity. Still, this isn’t as skillful as Michelangelo usually is.
Another figure is known as the large twisting torso of what’s called the Risen Christ.
It’s called that because of its similarity to Michelangelo’s Resurrection drawing, which is in the British Royal Collection. Resurrection could’ve been a study for a fresco in the New Sacristy.
The two pieces look quite similar. But the blank, mannequin type face in the secret drawings was like anything Michelangelo had drawn before.
Another figure, quite a successful drawing, is a twisting figure. The arms are raised above, there’s movement, and it’s well executed.
It was immediately associated with a known Michelangelo work, his Apollo-David in the Bargello Museum. That statue was actually finished in 1530, so the dates match up.
Final Thoughts
In the end, no one can say with certainty how many of these drawings are truly by Michelangelo.
It’s not as simple as “big muscles” or “looks familiar” = Michelangelo. Association doesn’t equal attribution.
And the great legend of Michelangelo hiding during political storms, is compelling, but not dispositive in any way. It could’ve just been the “coffee break” room where artists working on the New Sacristy took a break.
In fact, the walls suggest more than one hand and more than one level of skill.
Yet some of the larger figures carry that unmistakable force of a sculptor thinking in three dimensions, as if the bodies are already pushing out of stone.
It’s one of those rare places where the ambiguity is part of the experience.
Go see it for yourself. Stand in the room. Look closely. Then decide what you believe.
I hope you’ve enjoyed my guide to Michelangelo’s secret room in Florence. You may find these other Florence travel guides useful:
- 1 Day In Florence Itinerary
- 2 Days in Florence Itinerary
- 3 Days In Florence Itinerary
- Hidden Gems in Florence
- Best Museums in Florence
- Florence Art Bucket List
- Best Day Trips From Florence
- Free Things To Do In Florence
- Guide to the Medici Palaces
Pin it for later.
