Casa Buonarroti
Michelangelo bought this corner property in 1508 and barely lived here — what remains are his two earliest marble carvings and his own handwriting.
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This is the closest you get to the young Michelangelo. The museum holds the Madonna of the Stairs and the Battle of the Centaurs, both among his earliest marble sculptures. A 10,000-volume family library preserves his letters and drawings. The Galleria was painted by Artemisia Gentileschi and other early seventeenth-century artists, commissioned by his great-nephew after his death.
What to look for
- Madonna of the Stairs and Battle of the Centaurs — among his earliest marble sculptures
- Michelangelo's own letters and drawings held in the family archive library
- The Galleria decorated with paintings by Artemisia Gentileschi on commission from Michelangelo Buonarroti the Younger
On the corner of via Ghibellina, just north of Santa Croce — easy to reach on foot directly from the basilica.
Casa Buonarroti is one of 38 sights worth the detour in Florence, all bundled offline in Voyage GO — download the Florence pack and it sits on your map with no signal, filling your travel passport the moment you walk past.
More to see in Florence
- Michelangelo's DavidCarved for a cathedral roofline, then conscripted into politics — a 5.17-metre marble figure that became a republic's defiant face.
- Uffizi GalleryGiorgio Vasari built this as government offices in 1560; the Medici moved their art collection upstairs, and the last heiress gave it all to Florence under a formal family pact when the dynasty died out.
- Florence Cathedral (Duomo di Firenze)Brunelleschi's dome has been the largest masonry dome ever built since 1436 — and nothing has beaten it.
- Palazzo PittiA banker's act of one-upmanship that the Medici, Napoleon, and Italian kings all ended up calling home.
- Ponte VecchioThe only bridge in Florence spared from destruction during World War II — and it has been lined with shops since the Middle Ages.
- Palazzo VecchioFlorence's 1299 town hall was built on a Ghibelline rival's rubble — and the battlements were engineered to drop boiling liquid on anyone who showed up uninvited.