Medici Riccardi Palace

This guide to the Medici Riccardi Palace in Florence starts with a rejection: in 1444 Cosimo de Medici turned down Brunelleschi's design for his own palace, fearing a house too splendid could get a rich Florentine exiled. It follows the quieter architect Michelozzo instead, hired to design a facade of deliberate restraint. Look at the stone itself: rough-cut blocks at street level, smoother courses rising above them, a fortress that only whispers its wealth.