Tomb of Lorenzo de' Medici

Dear Mom,
I did it, I visited the tomb of the Magnificent. Check back to one of the first letters I wrote regarding the Pazzi Conspiracy. They didn’t get Lorenzo de Medici that time, but “during his latter years he was greatly afflicted with sufferings from his malady, the gout, and oppressed with intolerable pains in his stomach, which increased to that degree that he died in the month of April, 1492, in the forty-fourth year of his age.”(1) As of now, he is buried in the New Scarcity within the Medici Chapel with his slain brother, Guilano.(2) On my walk over, I noticed what looked to be the sale of spices and silks by local merchants. Their monetary discussions were drowned out by my fascination of the scudo d'oro, the coin that supplanted the florin in 1533.(3) Nevertheless, the high drum, hemispherical Dome, and rectangular features built around the drum guided me to my destination tranquilly.(4) I entered the New Scarcity through the back of the Chapel walking cautiously and voilà, there it was. My first reaction was where is the rest of it? I looked around, only to see two tomb walls painted, not four like my friend Rocco had alluded to.

1. Niccolò Machiavelli, "History of Florence: Lorence de' Medici," Internet History Sourcebooks Project, 1532. Accessed December 4, 2023. https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/source/machiavelli-histflo-lorenzo.asp.
2. Johannes Wilde, "Michelangelo’s Designs for the Medici Tombs," Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 18, no. 1/2 (1955): 55, https://doi.org/10.2307/750287.
3. Carson A. Simpson, “THE MINT OFFICIALS OF THE FLORENTINE FLORIN,” Museum Notes (American Numismatic Society) 5 (1952): 113. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43574073.
4. Gustina Scaglia, "Building the Cathedral in Florence," Scientific American 264, no. 1 (1991): 72,

http://www.jstor.org/stable/24936755.

And if it couldn't get any more perplexing, the tomb was on an entry wall that was built onto the church wall, not a part of it. Better yet, the stone was gray, slaty almost–very simplistic and almost condescending.(5) How could a tomb for a prized man like Lorenzo be so unappealing? A man so great and fortified that the sneaky Niccolo Machiavelli had to admit that “neither Florence nor all Italy ever lost a man of higher reputation for prudence and ability, or whose loss was more deplored by his country, than Lorenzo de' Medici.”(6) And “soon after Lorenzo's death, there began to spring up those evil seeds of trouble, which ruined and continue to cause the ruin of Italy, as there was no one capable of destroying them.”(7) I looked around, thinking maybe someone would walk in, but no one did. The room was silent, and then I remembered. Before the Magnificent died, he wrote a letter to his son reminding him that it was through God, not his merits or prudence that he was due for appointment. More importantly, he reminds him to “guard against all ostentation, either in your conduct or your discourse.”(8) And so, a plain, simple burial is just how he would have wanted it. The new streets he laid out, new houses built, and benevolent acquisition of Pietrasanta and Serezana were his duty, not a means of self-exalting. The patronage of learning men, festivities, and the university in the city of Pisa were all for the benefit of the people, never in vain.(9) He was the ruler of Florence, but made everyone feel valuable as well. Leonardo da Vinci, Andrea del Verrocchio, Michelangelo, the list goes on and on.(10) For that, I looked up at the “Madonna and Child” by Michelangelo, the San Cosma by Montorsoli and San Damiano by Raffaele di Montelupo that rested atop the tomb,(11) and said, “Please let my mom find a man like Lorenzo de Medici.” Haha, love you Mom.

5. Wilde, "Michelangelo’s Designs for the Medici Tombs," 57.
6. Machiavelli, "History of Florence: Lorence de' Medici,”
7. Machiavelli, "History of Florence: Lorence de' Medici,”
8. Lorenzo De Medici, "Lorenzo De Medici: Paternal Advice To A Cardinal," Internet History Sourcebooks Project, 1491. Accessed December 4, 2023. https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/source/lorenzomed1.asp#:~:text=Be%20attentive%2C%20therefore%2C%20to%20your,Rise%20early%20in%20the%20morning.
9. Machiavelli, "History of Florence: Lorence de' Medici,"
10. Giorgio Vasari, The Lives of the Artists, eds. and trans. Julia Conaway Bondanella, Peter
Bondanella (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 337-8.
11. Wilde, "Michelangelo’s Designs for the Medici Tombs," 63.