Casa Buonarroti

Michelangelo never lived in this house, although he purchased it in 1508. Making himself at home wasn’t the point, not to an artist who had no thought for his own personal comfort, or anyone else’s – he never washed, and never took off his boots, even in bed.

Real estate, however, was an obsession of his, as he struggled to restore the status of the semi-noble but impoverished Buonarroti. His nephew Leonardo inherited the house and several works of art in 1564; later he bought the two houses next door to create a memorial to his uncle, hiring artists to paint scenes from Michelangelo’s life. In the mid-19th century, the house was opened to the public as a museum.

The ground floor is dedicated to mostly imaginary portraits of the artist, and works of art collected by his nephew’s descendants, including an eclectic Etruscan and Roman collection and a lovely predella of the Life of St Nicolas of Bari by Giovanni di Francesco.