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Palazzo Medici Riccardi

Located near the Basilica di San Lorenzo, the Palazzo Medici Riccardi is one of the finest and most important palazzos of Florence. It was built in the fifteenth century on the commission of the Medici family by Michelozzo di Bartolomeo Michelozzi, a disciple of Ghiberti and collaborator of Donatello. The palazzo is a prototype of Renaissance civil architecture and effectively represents the power and influence of the Medici family. The building exerts influence on new architectural projects to this day, and has many features, like the rusticated stones on the lower level and the finer cuts stone at the top that have been copied for centuries.

The Palazzo Medici Riccardi contains a museum with regular exhibitions dedicated to major figures in modern and contemporary art. The palazzo has a beautiful seventeenth-century staircase that leads to the Chapel of the Magi, containing imaginative frescoes by Benozzo Gozzoli that are considered to be some of his finest work. There is also a fine statue of Orpheus by Baccio Bandinelli in the ornate courtyard.