Back in Florence, remember San Lorenzo? The plain exterior was the result of a common problem plaguing Renaissance churches: how to get a Classical temple front on a Christian church. Here we have an interesting image of Michelangelo's design superimposed as a virtual reproduction on the actual and still bare exterior of San Lorenzo. While working for Julius II in Rome, Michelangelo was called in to take on the project. Leo X was made Pope in 1513 and being a Medici, he wanted Michelangelo working on San Lorenzo. He later decided the New Sacristy in the Medici chapel was more important and Michelangelo was sent to design the funerary chapel.
You can see he might have been looking at Sangallo's original concept, which merged the stories to create a palace like facade with a rectangular shape. This design features
-paired columns and pilasters (Brunelleschian influence)
-niches between columns (Bramantean influence)
-complex rhthym
-no iconography or surface decoration, with the possible exception of the circles (may have depicted St. Lawrence)
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