Palazzo Medici Riccardi

The palace is located in Via Cavour, known in the past as Via Larga; it was originally commissioned, by Cosimo il Vecchio de’ Medici, to Brunelleschi but being its project too sumptuous, it was successively ordered to Michelozzo; he built a cubic palace having a sober and austere exterior, around a central square courtyard with corinthian columns. The façade is a masterpiece of sobriety and elegance, although it has “exceptional” characters such as the use of ashlar, which in the Middle Ages was normally reserved to public buildings for the city government; the ashlar is graduated so that it is more protruding at the ground floor, more flattened at the first floor and characterized by smooth slabs and just planed at the second. The mullioned windows, framed by a round dial showing a medallion in the centre, containing the Medici coat of arms and rosettes, regularly mark the façade. The windows display slight differences among the floors, with larger frames at the top.

The building is made of Pietraforte Sandstone; the columns of the mullioned windows, the roof frame and the decorative motif on the façade are made of Pietra Serena Sandstone. of Pietra Serena Sandstone; the benches surrounding the palace are in Pietraforte Sandstone.