Pope Clement VII, a Medici, commissioned the library in 1523 to show that the Medici were no longer just merchants. Michelangelo designed it and began work in 1525. When he left in 1534 only the reading room walls were complete. Tribolo, Vasari and Ammannati finished parts from his plans, and Cosimo I opened the library to scholars in 1571. The article calls it a prototype of Mannerist architecture, a style outside this atlas's fixed list.
It was built in a cloister of the Basilica di San Lorenzo. The vestibule is 34 feet (10.5 m) square and 48 feet (14.6 m) tall, with recessed columns and blank tapering windows. Its staircase fills the room, and the central treads are convex and vary in width.
The reading room is 152 feet (46.2 m) long, 34 feet (10.5 m) wide and 28 feet (8.4 m) high, with window frames of pietra serena.
Comments