Almost 50 years after its discovery in Florence (1975), Michelangelo’s “Secret Room” will be open to the public for the first time on November 15th. It is a small room containing a series of charcoal and sanguine sketches attributed to Buonarroti (who hid here in 1530) and which can be accessed from the New Sacristy, inside the Museum of the Medici Chapels. The magical room is set in the tunnels under the Medici Chapels in Florence, “theatre” of the torment and ecstasy that characterized the life of Buonarroti, who hid here for four months in 1530 during the persecution of Pope Clement VII Medici, and here he would have practiced making drawings, sketches, author’s proofs, with charcoal and sanguine. Between (true) history and legend, this great little ancient world of Michelangelo finally opens more than 50 years after its discovery in 1975.
The opening will be experimental and reservations open until March 30, 2024. After the announcement made last September 26 by the general director of the Museums of the Ministry of Culture, Massimo Osanna, during the press conference to present the new release of the Chapel Museum Medicee, the director of the Bargello Museums, Paola D’Agostino, provided the details today. The imminent and long-awaited opening to the public of the «Secret Room», which has never been accessible to the public in a regulated manner until now, is also made possible thanks to the monitoring that will be conducted in the coming months, in agreement with the Opificio delle Pietre Dure and will enter in force starting from November 15th for limited groups of maximum 4 people at a time, in order to protect the drawings and maintain adequate conservation conditions, essential to safeguard the precious artefacts.
The limited number of presences per time slot is due to the need to alternate the period of exposure to LED light with prolonged periods of darkness. In 2018, thanks to the collaboration of the Ministry of Culture with Lottomatica, the maestro Mario Nanni, assisted by the architect Maria Cristina Valenti, in those years working at the Bargello Museums, also took care of the new LED lighting of the Secret Room.
«The conclusion of the works on the new exit and the adaptation of the Museum of the Medici Chapels to safety regulations will allow Michelangelo’s secret room to be opened – explained Massimo Osanna – a place of extraordinary charm, but very delicate due to the location of the narrow environment in the museum itinerary and for the protection of the charcoal drawings on the walls”. «It has been a long, constant and patient work that has involved various professionals and I would like to thank all the staff of the Bargello Museums who have worked with me in recent years towards this objective – declared Paola D’Agostino – Among them I owe a particular thanks to Francesca de Luca, art historian and manager of the Medici Chapels and Casa Martelli and to Benedetta Cantini, restorer at the Bargello Museums for the careful care they take of this extraordinary environment. My deep gratitude goes to the colleagues of the Opificio delle Pietre Dure who share with competence and passion many restoration, diagnostic, monitoring and research projects on some masterpieces of the Bargello Museums”.
And he added: «This very small environment is truly unique due to its exceptional evocative potential. Its walls seem to barely contain numerous sketches of figures, mostly of monumental format, traced by signs that attest to a great clarity of design – commented Francesca de Luca, curator of the Museum of the Medici Chapels – These are accompanied by studies, variously accurate or summaries, of anatomical details, of faces, of unusual poses. Not in all the drawings is the same sustained qualitative tension of Michelangelo’s graphics perceptible, which according to the reconstruction of Paolo dal Poggetto, discoverer of this room in 1575, could have been exercised here in 1530 during his inaction to save himself from the wrath of Pope Clement VII Medici due to his activity as head of fortifications with the republican government, which had expelled the family in 1527. However, this place allows today’s visitors the unique experience of being able to come into direct contact not only with the creative process of master, but also with the perception of the formation of his myth of divine artist, taken as a model by contemporary colleagues and by young people enrolled in the Academy of Drawing Arts, of which Michelangelo was named “Father and Master” who in 1563 established his located in the Sacristy”.
How to organize the visit
The “Secret Room” will be accessible exclusively by reservation, to a maximum of four people per accompanied group, up to a limit of 100 people per week. It will be open every day except Tuesday. The maximum stay inside the room will be 15 minutes, accompanied by the Museum security staff. Since to access the room it is necessary to go down a narrow staircase, the room is not accessible to disabled people and, for safety reasons, to children under 10 years of age. The entrance ticket will cost 20.00 euros per person plus 3 compulsory reservations (3 euros) and the price of the entrance ticket to the Medici Chapel Museum (10 euros full, 3 euros reduced until 15 December 2023). A total of 30.00 euros plus the mandatory reservation for full tickets and 5 euros plus the 3 euro mandatory reservation for reduced tickets.