Chapel of the Princes, Florence

The Chapel of the Princes

This Chapel is a grand and striking mausoleum erected between 1604 and 1640 by the architect Matteo Nigetti following the designs of Giovanni de Medici, who practised architecture in a semi-professional manner. The Mausoleum, with its large dome and lavish interior ornamented with marble, was conceived to celebrate the power of the Medici dynasty which had successfully ruled Florence for several centuries. The octagonal room designed to contain the bodies of the Grand Dukes is in fact almost entirely covered with semi-precious stones and different-coloured marbles. The sarcophagi of the Grand Dukes are contained in niches and complemented by bronze statues . The inlay of the semi-precious stones, partially executed by highly skilled workers from the laboratories of the Opificio delle Pietre dure (see the related section, below) took several centuries to complete due to the difficulty of obtaining such rare materials that were available only at very high cost.
The interior of the dome was planned originally to be entirely covered with lapis lazuli, but was left incomplete at the end of the Medici period; the frescoes we see today were painted by Pietro Benvenuti in 1828 and feature scenes of the Old and New Testaments; these frescoes were commissioned by the then-reigning Lorraine family.
thanks www.museumsinflorence.com