Palazzo Pitti

This guide to Palazzo Pitti in Florence opens around 1458 with the banker Luca Pitti, grown rich on his ties to Cosimo de' Medici, setting out to build the grandest house Florence had ever seen to outshine his rivals, even setting two contrasting stones by the entrance to symbolize his own greatness. It follows his fortunes collapsing after Cosimo's death in 1464, work freezing mid-construction with the walls half finished, and Pitti dying in 1472 without seeing his palace completed. Look at the scale of the courtyard and windows he left behind, built to dwarf anyone who stood before them.