10 Michelangelo Hidden Gems in Italy Most Tourists Never Find [10:17]

YouTube ^ | May 9, 2026 | Roam Roster

[SunkenCiv]

Michelangelo left hidden gems across Florence, Rome, and Milan that most tourists never find. This Italy travel guide reveals 10 masterpieces you can still visit today, from a rejected drunk god in the Bargello to the last sculpture his hands ever touched. 

Most people spend four hours in Florence and see exactly one Michelangelo work. This video finds ten more, scattered across churches with no lines, chapels most visitors walk past, and museums that rarely appear on any itinerary. 

10 Michelangelo Hidden Gems in Italy Most Tourists Never Find | 10:17 
Roam Roster | 2.06K subscribers | 61,695 views | May 9, 2026

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TOPICS: History; Science; Travel
KEYWORDS: art; florence; godsgravesglyphs; italy; michelangelo; milan; renaissance; rome

[SunkenCiv]

In this video you will find:

• The Risen Christ in Rome, altered by the church without Michelangelo's approval
• The Unfinished Slaves at the Accademia Florence, the sculptures most visitors miss on the way to the David
• The Bacchus at the Bargello Museum Florence, his first major sculpture, rejected by the man who commissioned it
• The Battle of the Centaurs at Casa Buonarroti Florence, carved at age 17
• The Laurentian Library Vestibule at San Lorenzo Florence, architecture that broke every rule on purpose
• The Moses at San Pietro in Vincoli Rome, including the mistranslation that gave him horns
• The Medici Chapel at San Lorenzo Florence, built under a pardon from the family he fought against
• The Deposition at the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo Florence, carved for his own tomb then destroyed
• The Conversion of Saul in the Pauline Chapel Vatican, his last large-scale fresco
• The Rondanini Pieta at Castello Sforzesco Milan, worked on three days before his death

[SunkenCiv]

[libh8er]

I was at the Accademia in Florence couple of months ago. Saw some of his stuff including the giant statue of David as you enter.

[chajin]

The movie The Agony and the Ecstasy has about a twelve minute preface, in which many of these works are shown. See it here.

[Adder]

He was simply the best...I want to say “ever”.

Another of his earlier works was a crucifix currently in Santo Spiritu in Florence. Some cautions: The church has weird hours so you can’t just pop in and they charge a couple euros to see it.

The Bacchus is interesting because, tho it was rejected, it led to him getting the commission for the Pieta.

There is also the design of the Piazza del Campodoglio in front of the city hall of Rome, tossed in during some down time [j/k].

[Chainmail]

Ping for later

[jimfr]

The Agony and the Ecstasy, one of my favorite films. The best part is at night when Michelangelo is up on the scaffolding and the pope climbs up and they discuss one of the paintings. Does anyone remember it?

[woodbutcher1963]

Did you see the violins and the pianos up on the second floor?
There are two Stratavarious violins on the second floor. There is also the very first piano ever made.

[woodbutcher1963]

The problem with Florence is that there is just TOO much to see. We were there for three or four nights two Octobers ago. It is overwhelming. We stayed in a apartment right off the main piazza. Right next to the Cosmo Medichi on the big horse statue.
So, the Ufizzi gallery was right across the piazza.

We were right in the center of town. Everything was walking distance. Yet, we did not see everything. Like the Pity palace. We walked over to it, but never went inside.

We never went to the Divinchi Museum either.

[libh8er]

Yes ! I started with the musical instruments first.

[libh8er]

Florence is a treasure trove. Made two separate trips to the Uffizi spending many hours inside and still thought I barely scratched the surface.

[Paal Gulli]

I am something of a Michelangelo junkie, so please excuse my excess.

The first on the list, Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, in on my "don't miss" list. The narrator speaks to the bronze drapery around the Risen Christ's privates but fails to mention it's true purpose. A monk vandalized the statue with a hammer because Jesus' immodesty offended him, so that's what they're hiding. Besides an emascualted Jesus, there's a Bernini obelisk in the parking lot. And Sopra Minerva was where Galileo, who was suffering from imprisonment, the infirmities of old age, and the hospitality of an Inquisition, recanted his theory of heliocentricity.

RE: Moses in San Pietro in Vincoli, another case of a mistranslation by St Jerome (horns on Moses' head instead of rays of light). He also mistranslated Exodus 20:13 from the Pentateuch, substituting the Latin for "kill" (occides) for the Hebrew "murder" (tirtzach). His Latin Vulgate bible was the basis for many English translations, including the KJV, which perpetuated his 'alteration,' which has become foundational to no end of pacifist movements. But according to the Hebrews (who are the only ones who have any legitimate say in this matter), G-d did not write the word "kill" (or its Hebrew equivalent) on either of the tablets Moses brought down from the mountain.

And Jerome apparently thought he was making a clever pun when he used the Latin "malum" rather than a more straightforward literal translation of the generic "fruit" used in the Hebrew, referring to the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden. "Malum" can refer to any fleshy, seed-bearing fruit -- such as an apple -- but it also is Latin for 'evil.' So perhaps he was being a bit cheeky with this double entendre. And starting with Dürer's 1504 engraving, "Adam and Eve," which depicted the Tree of Knowledge as an apple tree, the apple has been canon.

In his panels of the fall of man in the ceiling of the Sistine, Michaleangelo chose a fig tree, presumably because he was familiar with the Hebrew and wasn't impressed with the "apple" interpretation, and he knew that Adam and Eve had clothed themselves in fig leaves once they saw that they were naked, and the Hebrew does mention fig trees in the Garden.

The narrator states that San Pietro is five minutes from the Collosseum, but that's five minutes by taxi ... up a pretty steep hill.

I hate the layout of David in he Academia. You first sight Michelangelo's David from about 30 yards away, down a long gallery. So the statue's enormity (17 feet tall!) isn't apparent until you've walked some distance to get to it, which mutes it impact. I encourage companions to stare at the floor until we are at his feet, so their first glimpse is nearer to the perspective that Michelangelo had in mind when he carved it (in one case I used my fedora to shield the eyes of my companion so as to preserve the surprise). It was intended to be placed high off the ground atop one of the Duomo's pilasters.

A replica where Michelangelo probably intended it to go:

If memory serves, this is about 75 feet above ground level. Which explains why his willy is so ... modest. If Michelangelo had made it 'normal-sized' from eye-level, it would have looked gargantuan from a street level perspective.

[SunkenCiv]

Wow! Thanks all!

[ek_hornbeck]

The Agony and the Ecstasy, one of my favorite films.

Have you seen the film Sin, an Italian film (in the language) directed by Andrey Konchalovsky (of Runaway Train fame)? The actor playing Michelangelo is a dead ringer for the famous portrait by Volterra, and the film is about how Michelangelo is caught in the middle of the feud between the de Medici and del Rovere clans.

It's slow-paced but an excellent film. My favorite scenes are those where the troubled Michelangelo has imaginary conversations with his idol, Dante Alighieri (who died 100 or 150 years before Michelangelo was born).

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks, I’ll guess that it has English subtitles?

[ek_hornbeck]

Yes, the version I watched was subtitled. I hate dubbing of foreign films - I’m not a lip reader, but I can tell when someone’s mouth is making a vowel sound while I hear a fricative consonant!

[SunkenCiv]

Sometimes it’s amusing, as with “For a Few Dollars More”, where Clint and Lee et all perform in English, but all the minor characters are giving their lines in I guess Italian.

[Adder]

Yes! And the book was great, too.