Visitors go to the Riccardi palace rather to see Gozzoli's frescoes
than anything else; and indeed apart from the noble solid Renaissance
architecture of Michelozzo there is not much else to see. In the
courtyard are certain fragments of antique sculpture arranged against
the walls, and a sarcophagus is shown in which an early member of the
family, Guccio de' Medici, who was gonfalonier in 1299, once reposed.
There too are Donatello's eight medallions, but they are not very
interesting, being only enlarged copies of old medals and cameos and
not notable for his own characteristics.

Hence it is that, after Gozzoli, by far the most interesting
part of this building is its associations. For here lived Cosimo
de' Medici, whose building of the palace was interrupted by his
banishment as a citizen of dangerous ambition; here lived Piero
de' Medici, for whom Gozzoli worked; here was born and here lived
Lorenzo the Magnificent. To this palace came the Pazzi conspirators
to lure Giuliano to the Duomo and his doom. Here did Charles
VIII--Savonarola's "Flagellum Dei"--lodge and loot, and it was here
that Capponi frightened him with the threat of the Florentine bells;
hither came in 1494 the fickle and terrible Florentine mob, always
passionate in its pursuit of change and excitement, and now inflamed
by the sermons of Savonarola, to destroy the priceless manuscripts
and works of art; here was brought up for a year or so the little
Catherine de' Medici, and next door was the house in which Alessandro
de' Medici was murdered.

It was in the seventeenth century that the palace passed to the
Riccardi family, who made many additions. A century later Florence
acquired it, and to-day it is the seat of the Prefect of the