Michelangelo's libreria secreta

Abstract

In 1525, Michelangelo was commissioned by Pope Clement VII to design a "libreria secreta" to be placed at the Southern end of the Laurentian library in Florence. The room was intended as a repository of the more precious manuscripts of the Medici family collection. For political and economic reasons, the small room was never built. The first half of the thesis focuses on the extant evidence. This initial historical research is a prolegomenon to the second half of the paper, in which I reconstruct the libreria secreta with several computer renderings. The reconstructions synthesize the historical evidence that I have collected into several possible visual representations of the room. The goal of this thesis is twofold: 1) To provide a more complete understanding of the Laurentian library by discussing the role of the libreria secreta within the complex. 2) To produce a series of computer reconstructions in order to visualize, and in turn, to analyze the resolved and unresolved aspects of Michelangelo's project.