Description
Palazzo Medici Riccardi is the first palace the Medici had in Florence, at Via Cavour 3. It was the home of Cosimo the Elder and Lorenzo the Magnificent, and for the Florentine Renaissance it is a model: cubic, imposing outside and refined inside.
Cosimo the Elder, the Medici patriarch, had just been through prison and exile on the charge of wanting to play the tyrant. When he decided to build himself a home, he chose prudence. Vasari tells that Brunelleschi's design was rejected for being too magnificent.
The job went instead to Michelozzo, more discreet. From 1444 rose a cubic palace with a sober, austere exterior, around a square courtyard with Corinthian columns. For the Florentine Renaissance it became a model. Palazzo Strozzi is an example of its derivation.
The Chapel of the Magi is the room not to miss: Benozzo Gozzoli painted the Medici family in the procession of the Three Kings.
Farther on, the Luca Giordano Gallery offers a Baroque ceiling celebrating the Medici, while Michelozzo's courtyard is a corner of calm. In the courtyard stood Donatello's David, and in the bedroom Paolo Uccello's three Battles of San Romano.
The facade uses rustication, which in the Middle Ages was for public buildings, but does so with restraint: very prominent on the ground floor, gradually smoother as it rises. In the courtyard, the portico has a frieze of medallions with Medici coats of arms, and at the far end is Baccio Bandinelli's Orpheus, from 1519.
Lorenzo the Magnificent grew up here, and here he hosted poets, philosophers and young artists: Michelangelo lived here as a boy. In the garden on the north side young artists studied classical sculptures, in what was a sort of academy.
The palace stood in a strategic spot, at the crossroads of Via Larga, today Via Cavour, near San Lorenzo, San Marco and the Duomo: the whole area was called the "Medici quarter."
Then the party ended. In 1494, stirred up by Savonarola, the Florentines sacked the palace and drove out the Medici. In 1659 the house was sold to the wealthy Riccardi, who enlarged it and lived there for about 150 years.
Don't miss
• The Chapel of the Magi.
• The Luca Giordano Gallery.
• Michelozzo's courtyard.
Did you know?
• In the garden there is an ancient headless statue, perhaps a Hercules: the Riccardi gave it the head of Marquis Francesco Riccardi.
• In 1988 a little secret frescoed room was found, forgotten for at least 170 years.
Cosimo the Elder, the Medici patriarch, had just been through prison and exile on the charge of wanting to play the tyrant. When he decided to build himself a home, he chose prudence. Vasari tells that Brunelleschi's design was rejected for being too magnificent.
The job went instead to Michelozzo, more discreet. From 1444 rose a cubic palace with a sober, austere exterior, around a square courtyard with Corinthian columns. For the Florentine Renaissance it became a model. Palazzo Strozzi is an example of its derivation.
The Chapel of the Magi is the room not to miss: Benozzo Gozzoli painted the Medici family in the procession of the Three Kings.
Farther on, the Luca Giordano Gallery offers a Baroque ceiling celebrating the Medici, while Michelozzo's courtyard is a corner of calm. In the courtyard stood Donatello's David, and in the bedroom Paolo Uccello's three Battles of San Romano.
The facade uses rustication, which in the Middle Ages was for public buildings, but does so with restraint: very prominent on the ground floor, gradually smoother as it rises. In the courtyard, the portico has a frieze of medallions with Medici coats of arms, and at the far end is Baccio Bandinelli's Orpheus, from 1519.
Lorenzo the Magnificent grew up here, and here he hosted poets, philosophers and young artists: Michelangelo lived here as a boy. In the garden on the north side young artists studied classical sculptures, in what was a sort of academy.
The palace stood in a strategic spot, at the crossroads of Via Larga, today Via Cavour, near San Lorenzo, San Marco and the Duomo: the whole area was called the "Medici quarter."
Then the party ended. In 1494, stirred up by Savonarola, the Florentines sacked the palace and drove out the Medici. In 1659 the house was sold to the wealthy Riccardi, who enlarged it and lived there for about 150 years.
Don't miss
• The Chapel of the Magi.
• The Luca Giordano Gallery.
• Michelozzo's courtyard.
Did you know?
• In the garden there is an ancient headless statue, perhaps a Hercules: the Riccardi gave it the head of Marquis Francesco Riccardi.
• In 1988 a little secret frescoed room was found, forgotten for at least 170 years.