Tomb of Giovanni and Piero de' Medici, Renaissance grave in San Lorenzo Church, Florence, Italy

The Tomb of Giovanni and Piero de' Medici is a marble, bronze, porphyry and serena stone monument by Andrea del Verrocchio, set in the gap between the left transept and the Old Sacristy of San Lorenzo, Florence. Its porphyry sarcophagus rests on a base with lion's feet and bronze scrollwork, with a green serpentine medallion in a bronze wreath at its centre. A bronze grate imitating braided rope screens the opening, and the lid carries acanthus leaves and a small finial.

Lorenzo de' Medici commissioned the tomb from Andrea del Verrocchio for his father Piero, who died in 1469, and his uncle Giovanni, who died in 1463; it was finished in 1472. Verrocchio took the Renaissance arched-wall tomb type of Bernardo Rossellino's Bruni monument and Desiderio da Settignano's Marsuppini tomb as his model, but set the sarcophagus under an arch between two Medici-patronised rooms rather than against a wall.

The tomb stands in the passage between the left transept and the Old Sacristy, both under Medici patronage, so the family placed its dead on ground it controlled. The bronze grate imitates a twisted rope, and the base rests on real tortoises, motifs taken from Pollaiuolo's Hercules and Antaeus. The green serpentine medallion follows the tabernacle of Santa Maria a Peretola and Luca della Robbia's Federighi tomb.

The tomb is not in the Old Sacristy itself but in the gap between the left transept (Chapel of the Relics) and the Old Sacristy, under the arch linking the two rooms. Look for it from the transept side, where the bronze grate patterned like braided rope screens the opening; the light passing through its mesh falls on the porphyry and serpentine.

The tomb completely avoids figurative sculptures and reliefs that were common in other memorials, relying instead solely on colored stone and geometric form. This minimalist approach was radical for its time and shows how avant-garde Renaissance artists could think about commemorating the dead.