In the 15th century, Cosimo de' Medici — the family patriarch and the most powerful man in Florence — asked Brunelleschi, the architect who built the Dome, for a design, then rejected it as too ostentatious.
He gave the commission to Michelozzo, his trusted family architect, instead.
The result — rusticated stone at the base, smoother ashlar above, a projecting classical cornice at the top — became the most imitated private palazzo in Florence.
The chapel inside holds Benozzo Gozzoli's Procession of the Magi, in which the three biblical kings are recognisably portraits of the Medici family.
A young Lorenzo the Magnificent rides a white horse.
Cosimo himself appears, elderly and modest, on a mule at the back.
It is a painting that says: we are important enough to be in the Bible.
Cosimo never held any official government position.
He ran Florence entirely through influence, money, and relationships.
After his death in 1464, the city senate awarded him the title Pater Patriae: Father of the Fatherland.
Fun fact: Cosimo's personal motto was Festina lente — 'make haste slowly.' He was, by all accounts, extraordinarily patient.
