Jerusalem Delivered to Italy: Moving the Holy Sepulcher across the Mediterranean

Abstract

IN 1604, THE TUSCAN GRAND DUKE Ferdinando I de’ Medici planned to execute an extraordinary feat with the aid of the Druze emir Fakhr ad-Dīn II: to move the Holy Sepulcher from Ottoman-controlled Jerusalem to Florence. He allegedly intended to place Christ’s tomb in the center of the Cappella dei Principi in the Church of San Lorenzo. Located between the Old and New Sacristy, this chapel was being constructed as a mausoleum for the Medici princes (fig. 1). Ferdinando inherited the incomplete project from his father, Cosimo I, who, with the court architect Giorgio Vasari, initially envisioned its design as a celebration of stone. According to Vasari, “various mixed marbles” collected from around the world and embedded in the chapel’s walls “would make this new mausoleum