Strozzi Palace

This guide to the Strozzi Palace in Florence follows the banker Filippo Strozzi, driven into exile by the rival Medici, who returned to the city in 1466 and set out to build the grandest private palace Florence had ever seen, right in the shadow of Medici power. It traces his careful astrological timing of the 1489 groundbreaking, and what became of his ambitious project after he died just two years later. Look up at the rough, fortress-like stone facade as you listen.