The first Medici palace, the home of Cosimo the Elder & Lorenzo the Magnificent & the workplace of artists of the calibre of Donatello, Michelangelo, Paolo Uccello, Benozzo Gozzoli and Botticelli. The Renaissance house… where it all began. Towards 1444 Cosimo the Eldest, the patriarch of the Medici family, commissioned to Michelozzo a palace to be built in via Larga (now via Cavour), close to the church of San Lorenzo: the palace is the first Renaissance building erected in Florence. Characterised by clearly delineated and rusticated floors & a huge cornice crowning the roofline, the palace stands out for the arched windows arranged along its front & the partially closed loggia on the corner of the building. In 1517 the original building was altered by closing the loggia & adding the two "kneeling" windows according to Michelangelo's project. The palace continued to be inhabited by the lesser members of the family until 1659, when Ferdinando II sold it to the Riccardi marquises.