S. Lorenzo was a very old church in the time of Giovanni de’ Medici, the first great man of the family, and had already been restored once, in the eleventh century, but it was his favourite church, chosen by him for his own resting-place, and he spent great sums in improving it.  All this with the assistance of Brunelleschi, who is responsible for the interior as we now see it, and would, had he lived, have completed the facade.  After Giovanni came Cosimo, who also devoted great sums to the glory of this church, not only assisting Brunelleschi with his work but inducing Donatello to lavish his genius upon it; and the church was thus established as the family vault of the Medici race.  Giovanni lies here; Cosimo lies here; and Piero; while Lorenzo the Magnificent and Giuliano and certain descendants were buried in the Michelangelo sacristy, and all the Grand Dukes in the ostentatious chapel behind the altar.

Cosimo is buried beneath the floor in front of the high altar, in obedience to his wish, and by the special permission of the Roman Church; and in the same vault lies Donatello.  Cosimo, who was buried with all simplicity on August 22nd, 1464, in his last illness recommended Donatello, who was then seventy-eight, to his son Piero.  The old sculptor survived his illustrious patron and friend only two and a half years, declining gently into the grave, and his body was brought here in December, 1466.  A monument to his memory was erected in the church in 1896.  Piero (the Gouty), who survived until 1469, lies close by, his bronze monument, with that of his brother, being that between the sacristy and the adjoining chapel, in an imposing porphyry and bronze casket, the work of Verrocchio, one of the richest and most impressive of all the memorial sculptures of the Renaissance.  The marble pediment is supported by four tortoises, such as support the monoliths in the Piazza S. Maria Novella.  The iron rope work that divides the sacristy from the chapel is a marvel of workmanship.

But we go too fast:  the church before the sacristy, and the glories of the church are Donatello’s.  We have seen his cantoria in the Museum of the Cathedral.  Here is another, not so riotous and jocund in spirit, but in its own way hardly less satisfying.  The Museum cantoria has the wonderful frieze of dancing figures; this is an exercise in marble intarsia.  It has the same row of pillars with little specks of mosaic gold; but its beauty is that of delicate proportions and soft tones.  The cantoria is in the left aisle, in its original place; the two bronze pulpits are in the nave.  These have a double interest as being not only Donatello’s work but his latest work.  They were incomplete at his death, and were finished by his pupil Bertoldo (1410-1491), and since, as we shall see, Bertoldo became the master of Michelangelo, when he was a lad of fifteen and Bertoldo an old man of eighty, these pulpits may be said to form a link between the two great S. Lorenzo