The room was used to store coal until 1955 and then sealed and forgotten about for decades below a trapdoor that was in turn, hidden beneath furniture.
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00:00 A small 30 meter square space and some 500 year old charcoal sketches. But these aren't
00:06 any old drawings. This was the Italian master painter Michelangelo's secret room. For centuries
00:11 this formerly dark and dingy cold cellar was used as a storage room within the San Lorenzo
00:16 Basilica in Florence. Then in 1975 these drawings were accidentally discovered during a cleaning
00:22 operation beneath two layers of plaster. Michelangelo also hid in this room for about two months
00:28 in 1530 when he was hunted by Pope Clement VII, a member of the powerful Medici family,
00:33 for supporting the Republican government.
00:35 [It's a strong impact because it's an environment that captures you, it captures you from all
00:42 sides, it drags you, it's a kind of time capsule where you see how they made an art work,
00:47 it's beautiful.]
00:49 Locked in this small room, Michelangelo found a way not to get bored and to carry on with
00:55 his work, using for his drawings the only available surface, the walls of his hiding place.
01:02 Experts say some of these sketches might belong to Michelangelo's apprentices due to differences
01:08 in style, but the hand of the Renaissance genius is unmistakable in some others.
01:13 [These are drawings that are the mind exercises, the artist's mental project that translates
01:20 it into a drawing. There are some that have a manuality and energy in the sign that make
01:29 them qualitatively superior to the others.]
01:33 The studies of the human body and faces, the black marks of the torches that were used to
01:38 light up the room and the complicated composition of bodies on the walls all tell a story of
01:43 an artist on a mission, even when a warrant was issued for his death.
01:47 [These were drawn in relation to the Sistinian paintings. They remind me of the creation
01:58 with God the Father that flies in the air, even though they are not identical, but they
02:04 remind me a lot.]
02:06 Michelangelo's secret room is open to the public from the 15th of November to just 100
02:11 visitors per week.
02:13 (whooshing)