Of all the religious buildings in Florence, none is documented earlier than San Lorenzo. It was consecrated in 393 by St. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, and acted as the city’s cathedral, before either the Baptistery or Santa Reparata. It was rebuilt in the romanesque period, and re-consecrated in 1059. In 1418 the Medici decided to rebuild it entirely, and entrusted the project to Filippo Brunelleschi, who in 1421 designed the ‘old’ sacristy and the whole church, completed by Antonio Manetti in 1461. In the next century Michelangelo Buonarroti was commissioned to build the New Sacristy and the Laurentian Library, and to design the façade (which was never built). Inside, the church is planned as a Latin Cross, its aisles separated from the nave by Corinthian columns surmounted by high sculpted entablature blocks, supporting rounded arches. The nave is covered by a coffered ceiling with gilded rosettes on a white ground.