The Museo delle Cappelle Medicee is located in the Basilica of St Lawrence, once the Medici parish and the burial place of family members from the fifteenth century. The chapels are divided into four distinct parts: the New Sacristy, the Chapel of the Princes, the Crypt and the Lorenese Crypt.
The New Sacristy, designed and conceived by Michelangelo Buonarroti in 1519 and completed in about a decade, preserves the tombs of Giuliano and Lorenzo de ‘Medici. The Chapel of the Princes, where the Grand Dukes of Tuscany and their families are buried, is a monumental mausoleum decorated entirely in polychrome marbles and semi-precious stones, built by the architect Matteo Nigetti between 1604 and 1640, based on a design by Don Giovanni de’ Medici. The Crypt, designed by Buontalenti, preserves the tombs of the Medici Grand Dukes and their families. The Lorenese Crypt houses, in addition to the remains of the Loren family, the funeral monument to Cosimo the old Pater Patriae. The museum also conserves a portion of the precious Treasury of the Basilica of San Lorenzo, including sacred wall hangings (parati sacri) and magnificent reliquaries.