Laurentian Library

Laurentian Library

opened: 1571

7442

Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana

Buonarroti, Michelangelo

Italian

Single Built Works

Italy (nation)

Florence (inhabited place)

Renaissance

libraries (buildings)

paneling

Detail view of wood paneling inside the Laurentian Library in Florence, Italy. ""The Laurentian Library, Florence, is located in the cloister of S. Lorenzo. The library itself is a long room with reading desks, well lit by rows of windows between pilasters which correspond to the beams of the ceiling. This reposeful and clearly articulated space is preceded by a much taller monumental vestibule of square plan, almost entirely filled by an extraordinary staircase (executed by Ammanati 1559-), spilling from the library door and multiplying into three flights of stairs, of which the outer two are hardly usable. The vestibule walls are particularly unorthodox; paired columns rising from insubstantial volutes are recessed behind the white plaster wall surface from which project tabernacle niches with pilasters perversely widening towards their capitals,"--Sir Banister Fletcher. A History of Architecture.

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