The
Basilica di San Lorenzo (
Basilica of
St Lawrence) is one of the largest churches of
Florence,
Italy, situated at the centre of the city’s main market district, and the burial place of all the principal members of the Medici family from
Cosimo il Vecchio to
Cosimo III. It is one of several churches that claim to be the oldest in Florence; when it was consecrated in
393 it stood outside the city walls. For three hundred years it was the city's
cathedral before the official seat of the bishop was transferred to
Santa Reparata. San Lorenzo was also the parish church of the
Medici family. In 1419,
Giovanni di Bicci de' Medici offered to finance a new church to replace the 11th-century
Romanesque rebuilding.
Filippo Brunelleschi, the leading
Renaissance architect of the first half of the 15th century, was commissioned to design it, but the building, with alterations, was not completed until after his death. The church is part of a larger monastic complex that contains other important architectural and artistic works: the
Old Sacristy by Brunelleschi, with interior decoration and sculpture by
Donatello; the
Laurentian Library by
Michelangelo; the New Sacristy based on Michelangelo's designs; and the
Medici Chapels by
Matteo Nigetti.