Bologna is full of them; and Urbino, in the Ducal Palace, contains one specimen unexampled in extent and unique in interest.

Yet here, as in all departments of fine art, Florence takes the lead.

After Brunelleschi and Alberti came Michellozzo, the favourite architect of Cosimo de' Medici; Benedetto da Majano; Giuliano and Antonio di San Gallo; and Il Cronaca.

Cosimo de' Medici, having said that "envy is a plant no man should water," denied himself the monumental house designed by Brunelleschi, and chose instead the modest plan of Michellozzo.
Brunelleschi had meant to build the Casa Medici along one side of the Piazza di S.Lorenzo; but when Cosimo refused his project, he broke up the model he had made, to the great loss of students of this age of architecture.

Michellozzo was then commissioned to raise the mighty, but comparatively humble, Riccardi Palace at the corner of the Via Larga, which continued to be the residence of the Medici through all their chequered history, until at last they took possession of the Palazzo Pitti.[33] The most beautiful of all Florentine dwelling-houses designed at this period is that which Benedetto da Majano built for Filippo Strozzi.