2. Places, Architecture:
Courtyard of the Columns (also known as ‘Michelozzo courtyard’)
Author, circle:
Michelozzo (Florence, 1396-1472)
Commissioner, collector:
Cosimo ill Vecchio
de’ Medici (Florence, 1389- Careggi/Florence, 1464)
Epoch, date:
c. 1450
Location:
Florence, Via Cavour no. 1, Palazzo Medici Riccardi
Technical details:
on the plan: 24.89x20.12 m (maximum width); 11.38x11.35 m (area comprised between the coluPlaces,
Architecture: Courtyard of the Columns (also known as ‘Michelozzo courtyard’)
Author, circle: Michelozzo (Florence, 1396-1472)
Commissioner, collector: Cosimo il Vecchio de’ Medici (Florence, 1389- Careggi/Florence, 1464)
Epoch, date: c. 1450
Location: Florence, Via Cavour no. 1, Palazzo Medici Riccardi
Technical details: on the plan: 24.89x20.12 m (maximum width); 11.38x11.35 m (area comprised
between the columns); height: 7.52 m (maximum height).mns); height: 7.52 m (maximum height).
3. Michelozzo Bartolomeo
Michelozzo(1396-1472), a student of Brunelleschi,
worked not only in France but also in other northern
Italian cities. Although not so celebrated a designer
as Brunelleschi, Michelozzo was a capable architect
and was awarded several commissions by those
archetypal Renaissance patrons, the Medici. Most
noteworthy of these was the Palazzo Medici in
Florence.
4. The Palazzo Medici- History:
The palace was designed by Michelozzo di
Bartolomeo for Cosimo de' Medici, head of the
Medici banking family, and was built between
1445 and 1460. The client did not want to arouse
feelings of envy among other important families in
the city, so he rejected Brunelleschi earlier design
because it was too lavish and magnificent. Palazzo
Medici Riccardi has a particularly fascinating history,
rich in art and also in political, cultural and worldly
events. The building became the prototype of
Renaissance civil architecture.
5. •The palazzo has a square plan including a
•central courtyard serving as a circulation core
•for perimeter rooms that open to one another without a
continues corridor.
•Michelozzo made use of rustication. He arranged the street elevation in
three tiers of graduated textures , beginning with rock faced stone at the
street level and concluding with smooth ashlar at the third level below a 10-
foot-high crowning cornice with modillions, egg-and-dart moldings, and a
dentil course. The tripartite elevation used here expresses the Renaissance
spirit of rationality, order, and classicism on human scale. The cornice
projects 8 feet from the building supported on large brackets. The façade is
83 feet high
PLAN
7. Michelozzo di Bartolomeo was influenced in his building of this
palace by both classical Roman and Brunelleschian principles.
During the Renaissance revival of classical culture, ancient
Roman elements were often replicated in architecture, both
built and imagined in paintings. In the Palazzo Medici Riccardi,
the rusticated masonry and the cornice had precedents in
Roman practice, yet in totality it looks distinctly Florentine,
unlike any known Roman building.
Similarly, the early Renaissance architect Brunelleschi used
Roman techniques and influenced Michelozzo. The open
colonnaded court that is the center of the palazzo plan has
roots in the cloisters that developed from Roman peristyles.
8. The ground floor originally had 3 open arches along the street, the
central one giving access to the courtyard and rooms serving the
Medici banking business. From the courtyard a staircase led to the
major family rooms on the 2nd
floor. Deep shadows in the courtyard
make the palazzo's core cool and quiet.
Typical Romanesque windows with circular heads are used
throughout. While without radical innovations, the Medici Palace
reflects Michelozzo’s connection to renaissance circles through its
symmetry, inclusion of classical elements, and careful use of
mathematical proportions.
ELEVATION:
9. Description, subject:
The porticoes courtyard (also known as
“Courtyard of the columns”) is the fulcrum of
Palazzo Medici. An elegant and highly suggestive space, it was designed and
built by Michelozzo .
The courtyard is characterized by a broad colonnade that runs around the
perimeter, bordered on each side by four monolithic columns in pieta serena
sandstone, surmounted by Composite capitals supporting three round arches.
Supported on the upper cornice are several mullioned windows, similar to
those on the outer facade, where the central column is surmounted by a
Corinthian capital.
The three levels of the facade therefore illustrate the succession of the three
architectural orders, indicative of the usage of the adjacent
areas: Composite for the representation area of the courtyard, Corinthian for
the first floor and Ionic for the loggia giving access to the service quarters.
