| Visiting the museum of the Casa Buonarroti
arouses, first of all, the emotion of admiration for several early works by Michelangelo contained within its walls.
These very famous works by Michelangelo of extreme artistic importance include the "Madonna of the
Stairs" and the "Battle of the Centaurs". But for those who pass through the main entrance of
the lovely seventeenth century building located at Via Ghibellina 70, Florence, it is even more interesting to relate
the Michelangelo masterpieces housed there with the long story of the Buonarroti family. The family did all
it could to enlarge the dwelling and make it more attractive, while preserving a precious cultural heredity and
assembling a precious art collection at the same time.
Not only do the well-known masterworks by Michelangelo kept in the Casa Buonarroti come from the family
patrimony; the same is also true of paintings, sculptures, majolicas and the archaeological sections arranged on
the museum's two floors. Thus, the significance of the Casa Buonarroti does not limit itself to the exaltation of an
extraordinary personage such as Michelangelo, even if the existing documentation on him has been enriched by
gifts added to the family inheritance and by pieces on loan from Florentine museums.
The idea of creating a magnificent building decorated by renowned artists in the name of family honor, above all
that of its illustrious ancestors, was conceived in 1612 by Michelangelo Buonarroti the Younger, that exceptional
man of letters and cultural promoter, who achieved his dream with a thirty-year time span. The Casa Buonarroti
has remained unchanged down three centuries of vicissitudes, with moments of decline alternating with moments
of rebirth. It is the same now as it was then, a model residence among the many lost in Florence, one that exudes
a secret and peculiar fascination bound up with the family history.
Even the fact that the Casa Buonarroti belonged to a family both exceedingly conscious of their own story, and
claiming more than one distinguished member, makes for a monument and museum really one-of-a-kind. |
