Laurentian Library

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Aerial view. The Laurentian Library can be identified in the long row of windows above the cloister extending to the left of the picture. The taller structure with two rows of windows immediately to its right is the vestibule.

The Laurentian Library (Biblioteca Mediceo Laurenziana) is a library in Florence, Italy. It is famous as a repository of nearly 11,000 manuscripts and early printed books. Built in a cloister of the Medicean Basilica di San Lorenzo di Firenze under the patronage of the Medici pope, Clement VII, the Library is renowned for the architecture planned and built by Michelangelo Buonarroti (1525).

Lit by windows in bays that are articulated by pilasters corresponding to the beams of the ceiling, with a tall constricted vestibule (executed to Michelangelo's design in 1559 by Bartolomeo Ammanati) filled with a stair that flows down from the library itself, the Library is often instanced as a prototype of Mannerism in architecture [1].

In 1571, Cosimo I, Grand Duke of Tuscany, opened the still-incomplete Library to scholars. Notable additions to the collection were made by its most famous librarian, Angelo Maria Bandini, who was appointed in 1757 and oversaw its printed catalogues.