Medici Family Chapels and Florence Walking Tour

Meet your guide at the Medici Chapels

Your tour begins at Piazza di Madonna degli Aldobrandini at the entrance to the chapels. You’ll meet your guide and receive an introduction to the Medici family while preparing for your timed entry into the grand mausoleum.

Step into the Medici Chapels

Walk into the final resting place of the most powerful family in Florence history. Your guide explains how these burial sites served as a massive advertisement for their wealth and why this site remains one of the most expensive rooms ever built.

Study Michelangelo’s New Sacristy sculptures

Inside the New Sacristy (Sagrestia Nuova) burial chapel, you’ll see famous marble statues of Night, Day, Dawn, and Dusk. Your guide explains why Michelangelo carved these muscular figures for the Medici tombs and how he used art to show his complicated feelings toward the family.

Admire the marble-inlaid Chapel of the Princes

Next, you’ll enter a massive chapel covered entirely in semi-precious stones and polished marble. You’ll learn about the intense labor required to cut these hard stones into colorful patterns and why the Medici used this jewelry-like decor to impress their visitors.

Pass Palazzo Medici Riccardi and San Lorenzo exteriors

Back outside, you’ll see the family’s original home and the neighborhood they controlled. Your guide shows you how the massive stone blocks of their palace were designed to look both wealthy and safe, helping the family keep a firm grip on the city.