Florence: Medici Chapels Skip-the-Line Ticket & Michelangelo

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1/6

Duration1h–2h

Audio guideEN · DE +3

Mobile ticketAccepted

Michelangelo's Four Figures Wait Inside the Medici Chapels

You skip the entry queue with a timed-access voucher and walk directly into the Sagrestia Nuova to see Michelangelo's marble allegories of Night, Day, Dawn, and Dusk on the Medici tombs. Your entrance time is assigned by the provider based on availability and printed on your confirmation voucher, which you present at the chapel door during opening hours.

1h–2h

Step-by-step itinerary

Visit Medici Chapels in Florence

Arrive at Medici Chapels
Explore Michelangelo's sculptures
See allegories of Night, Day, Dawn, Dusk
Learn about Medici family tombs
Visit Sagrestia Nuova mausoleum

The Experience

The marble figures catch light differently depending on where you stand. Night reclines on one side, her face turned away. Day sits opposite, muscular and unfinished in places, which is the whole point — Michelangelo left them that way. You're standing in the Sagrestia Nuova, the New Sacristy inside the Basilica of San Lorenzo, and these aren't copies or casts. They're the actual sculptures commissioned in 1520 by Cardinal Giulio de' Medici and Pope Leo X, carved over more than two decades by Michelangelo himself before he left Florence for Rome in 1534. The chapel was meant to be a pendant to Brunelleschi's older sacristy across the basilica — a private mausoleum for the Medici family, holding the tombs of Lorenzo il Magnifico, his brother Giuliano, and two later dukes.

The skip-the-line ticket means you don't spend an hour in the queue that forms outside San Lorenzo most mornings. Instead, you get an assigned entrance time on your voucher — it arrives within one business day of booking, and you print it and present it at the chapel entrance. The time slot can fall anywhere between 8:15am and 4:45pm depending on availability that day, so you're not choosing the hour; the provider assigns what's closest to your request. It sounds rigid, but it's the mechanism that actually gets you in without standing in the crowd that builds up by mid-morning.

The Medici Chapels sit inside one of Florence's most visited churches, so the timed entry is what separates a quick, focused visit from the kind where you're shuffling in with fifty other people and can barely see the sculptures. You print your voucher, show up at your assigned time, and walk straight to the chapel. The architectural design is Michelangelo's too — the proportions, the way the light falls on the tombs, the relationship between the sculptures and the walls. It's the kind of space where standing still for a few minutes actually changes what you see.

What’s included

Your ticket includes guaranteed skip-the-line entry to the Medici Chapels (Sagrestia Nuova) inside the Basilica of San Lorenzo, with a timed entrance slot assigned by the provider.
You receive a printed voucher to present at the chapel door.
Public transportation options are available nearby to reach the basilica.

Good to know

Easy physical levelPublic transport nearbyInfants must sit on laps

Operated by Weekend in Italy

Is this one for you?Book this if you want to see Michelangelo's sculptures without spending time in the entry queue — the timed slot is what makes a focused visit possible on a busy day in Florence.