Zoom in: Florence – Church of San Lorenzo – Medici Chapels.
Action: a visit with Postgraduate School students to the restoration of Michelangelo’s New Sacristy carried out by the Soprintendenza ai Monumenti. Emotion, respectful silence.
On our way out, however, we cross a turbulent class of kids on school trip who break the magical atmosphere with a pizzeria behavior. No one is there to keep them in check; I can’t resist and make a few reprimands, but to no avail. One of them even protests: “We paid a ticket!”
Then fortunately they leave. I am approached by a janitor who has seen me rather altered. “Don’t be angry, come along, I’ll show you something and you’ll calm down.”
We enter a small room to the left of the altar. In the floor, still on the left, is a long, narrow wooden trapdoor. He opens it, and that remains poised, as suspended, by the effect of an invisible counterweight. Ingenious, I think.
– Thank you, is that what you wanted me to see?
– Nooo. Come, come down with me.
A few steps and I am in a low, elongated cellar, all empty. On the white walls a few stains and strange cobwebs. Then I realize: no stains, no cobwebs! These are mind-bogglingly beautiful drawings; it is Michelangelo’s ‘Secret Room’!
In the summer of 1530, after the fall of the Florentine republic of which he had been a supporter, Michelangelo stayed a few months in hiding here to escape the revenge of the Medici, and to pass the time he drew his ideas on these walls, reflecting among himself or with a friend, who also left us some ugly doodles.
However, I want to make a modest reflection as well, and it concerns the curious trapdoor with the counterweight. Monica Bietti dated it to the 1500s, thus contemporary with the construction of the Sacristy, and indeed the housing of the concealed mechanism in the wall indicates a contextual realization. But why was such a sophisticated solution chosen for a simple trapdoor?
Let’s reason a little.
Premise: the trapdoor was necessary. If access to the staircase had been left open in the small room, the gap in the floor would have required the protection of a cumbersome railing, so here is the convenience of the trapdoor, which originally, when someone had to go down into the cellar to draw water from a well that is still there, one can imagine was held open with a hook or prop, as one always does.
However, when Michelangelo had to hide in that very cellar, a new problem arose, because he had to be able to get out of there at any time with the trapdoor closed. Hence the utility of creating a mechanism to open it effortlessly from the inside; and it also had to be a mechanism that would not reveal its presence, even though it was likely kept hidden under a carpet or mat. With this ingenious contraption, therefore, all that was needed was a gentle push from underneath, and the trapdoor, balanced and light even if rather heavy (15-18 lb), could be opened without difficulty, without having to call anyone, without maneuvers made complicated by haste or perhaps by darkness due to the sudden extinguishing of a candle. And especially without the danger of it falling on Michelangelo’s precious head or those of his visitors.
So, let’s close the trapdoor again.
Hi Michelangelo!
