Visitors Will Be Allowed in Florence Chapel’s Secret Room to Ponder If Drawings Are Michelangelo’s

Delicate charcoal drawings that some experts have attributed to Michelangelo on the walls of a room used to store coal until 1955 inside Florence's Medici Chapel, in central Italy, on Oct. 31, 2023. Luigi Navarra/AP Photo

FLORENCE, Italy—Just four at a time, visitors soon will be allowed access to a long-hidden space inside Florence’s Medici Chapel where delicate charcoal drawings sketched on the walls have been attributed by some experts to Michelangelo.

The secret room—a tiny 10-by-3 meters (33-by-10 feet) space—was discovered in 1975, when officials were searching for a new exit from the Medici Chapel to accommodate increasing visitors.