Florence: Michelangelo’s Hidden Heart

See Florence through Michelangelo's eyes with a private art historian, from David to the drawings and love poems he made for the Roman nobleman Tommaso dei Cavalieri.

Florence is Michelangelo’s city: he grew up here, carved David here, is buried here, and his work is everywhere you look.

Less well known is the love story that shaped his later life. In 1532, in Rome, he met the young nobleman Tommaso dei Cavalieri. He wrote more poems to Tommaso than to anyone else and gave him some of the finest drawings he ever made.

With a private art historian, the city’s masterpieces take on a new and more personal meaning.

David at the Accademia

The day begins at the Galleria dell’Accademia, ideally as it opens. David stands at the end of a long gallery, and arriving early means you can see it with room to move and time to look.

Your guide talks you through how Michelangelo carved it from a single block of marble in the early 1500s and how his fascination with the male body runs through his work from here onward.

Renaissance Florence and the Officers of the Night

The Florence Michelangelo knew was both open and dangerous. In the fifteenth century, the city created a special magistracy, the Officers of the Night, to police sex between men, and thousands were accused over the decades that followed.

That context explains a great deal about how he lived and wrote. His feelings appear in his art and poetry, but almost always guarded, wrapped in myth or in the language of spiritual love.

Tommaso dei Cavalieri

Soon after they met, Michelangelo gave Tommaso a set of presentation drawings, finished works made as gifts rather than studies. They included scenes from myths such as The Rape of Ganymede and The Punishment of Tityus. In a letter, Tommaso wrote that he spent hours each day looking at them.

The sonnets Michelangelo wrote to him are among the most passionate of the Renaissance, and one plays on his name, describing the poet as a prisoner of an armed cavalier. The two remained close for the rest of Michelangelo’s life, and Tommaso was with him when he died in 1564.

Casa Buonarroti

Casa Buonarroti, the family house turned museum, was created by Michelangelo’s great-nephew, Michelangelo the Younger. It holds early sculptures and a collection of drawings, which are shown in rotation to protect them, so you may find a sheet such as the Cleopatra on view. It was one of the drawings given to Tommaso, who was later obliged to hand it to Duke Cosimo I.

It was also Michelangelo the Younger who first published the poems in 1623. To make them more acceptable, he changed some of the pronouns so that poems written to a man appeared to address a woman.

Santa Croce

The day ends at the Basilica of Santa Croce, where Michelangelo is buried. His tomb, designed by Giorgio Vasari, stands in the nave alongside the memorials of other great Florentines.

After a day spent with his work and his words, it is a fitting place to finish, followed by a quiet drink in the square outside.

Planning Your Florence Experience

Both the Accademia and Casa Buonarroti work best with timed entry booked in advance, and the Accademia is calmest first thing in the morning. Allow a full day at an unhurried pace. Florence is around 90 minutes from Rome by high-speed train.

Out Of Office can arrange a private art historian, early entry where possible, and a table for lunch or dinner in the city. Your LGBTQ+ travel specialist can also combine Florence with Rome, where Michelangelo first met Tommaso, or a stay in Tuscany.