Secret Drawings of Michelangelo

Ten years after the flood, in 1975, the Medici Chapels were restored. After the restoration works, a concealed corridor of 7 meters by 2 was found below the New Sacristy (Sagrestia Nuova). In this corridor, the humidity caused by the flood made some charcoal drawings re-emerge. Those drawing depict various figures and characters and were sketched by Michelangelo himself, who was hiding there in 1529, when the Spanish Charles V invaded the city. Michelangelo would reproduce some of the character in the Sistine Chapel. Among those sketches, Michelangelo made a self-portrait: he drew himself wondering about his situation of “semi-freedom”.

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