Imagine the stupor, the surprise Paolo Dal Poggetto, then director of the Museo delle Cappelle Medicee Florence, must have felt when he discovered, entirely by chance, the last secret of Michelangelo Buonarroti. The year was 1975, the location was the Basilica di San Lorenzo, more precisely the Sagrestia Nuova, created during the Renaissance by Michelangelo himself, as a burial chamber for the Medicis.

Just as you’d expect in a movie, Dal Poggetto and his team discovered, hidden under a wardrobe, a trap door, probably locked since the Renaissance. As described by Claudia Kalb in her article for National Geographic, the room that welcomed them was nothing more than a coal deposit. But Dal Poggetto had a hunch, something was telling him that there was more in that small room, with its one single window providing only a sliver of light to its occupants.