As an engraver, Michelozzo learned how to cast, chase, and gild copper and bronze, two of the metals in which the Medieval and Renaissance goldsmith most commonly worked.

[3] Beginning in the early 1420s, Michelozzo became a member of the Arte dei Maestri di Pietra e Legname, one of the Guilds of Florence that represented the master stonemasons, wood-carvers, and sculptors.

"[1] From this, Michelozzo learned how to run a closely supervised shop, how to organize it efficiently, how to train and control assistants, and how to deal shrewdly in business and financial affairs.

In 1428, together with Donatello, Michelozzo erected an open-air pulpit at an angle of the Cathedral of St. Stephen at Prato, designed for the regular public displays of their famous relic, the Girdle of Thomas (Sacra Cintola).

"[1] Their relationship was best described by Angelo Fabroni in 1789, who said: "Cosimo loved Michelozzo dearly and relied on him, not only because of his natural talents (he considered nobody, not even Brunelleschi, superior in all architectural judgments), but also because of his good qualities and worthy character.

With great engineering skill Michelozzo shored up, and partly rebuilt, the Palazzo Vecchio, then in a ruinous condition, and added to it many important rooms and staircases.

When, in 1437, through Cosimo's liberality, the monastery of San Marco at Florence was handed over to the Dominicans of Fiesole, Michelozzo was employed to rebuild the domestic part and remodel the church.

"[5] Ludwig Heydenreich and Paul Davies argue that all of Michelozzo's buildings are "works of considerable standing...the most independent architect after Brunelleschi.

After studying documents and proofs for six weeks, the arbitrators found that the two brothers were the cause behind most of Michelozzo's debts, and they were required to relinquish their inheritance in partial compensation for the amounts they owed.

Like Bernardo, Niccolò studied with Ficino from a young age and took part in the Platonic Academy, where he formed friendships with other Florentine humanists who shared his love for antiquity.

Following the downfall of the Medici, he was imprisoned for a brief time before clearing his name in 1496 and becoming the precounsel of the Arte dei Giucidi e notai and later succeeded Niccolò Machiavelli as the Second Chancellor of the Republic in 1513.

"[9] Brunelleschi's influence on Michelozzo is evident in the palazzo's design, especially in the late-medieval bifora windows, the symmetry and the dominance of the entrance axis, and the combination of traditional and progressive elements.

The arcades and entablature of the palazzo's courtyard also follows the model of the loggia of the Spedale degli Innocenti, which is symptomatically Brunelleschi's earliest and most un-Vitruvian building.

Among the many Michelozzo innovations on the facade, the most notable include: "the use of bugnato digradante (large unevenly-cut stones which grow lighter as they ascend on the upper stories), the classical columns and fluted capitals in the bifore windows, the great classical cornice crowning the building and the small ones dividing the stories, the massive rectangular proportions of the block of square, and the regularity of the disposition of the windows, which, however, are asymmetrical in regard to the doors.

The plain white walls without frescos differ from the coloristic tradition of the Trecento and were essential to Michelozzo's architectural concepts and preference for large, unadorned surfaces, subtly articulated by necessary structural members in grey pietra serena.

The first part undertaken by Michelozzo was "the rebuilding of the old refectory, where a low vault, supported by consoles much like those in the sacristy at S. Trinita, was built to sustain the cells above.

Using the perimeter of the former Trecento church, Michelozzo added a polygonal apse, similar in form to that at Bosco ai Frati; it was lighted by three long round arch pietra serena windows which can still be seen in the upper story of the convent.

The pointed entrance arch rested on two pilasters with large, classical Corinthian capitals surmounted by a dado decorated with the Medici balls (also still visible).

In designing the Santissima Annunziata, Michelozzo followed the model of the Minerva Medica in Rome, making the inner plan round, creating a dome that was as hemispheric the Pantheon, and detailing it with a ten-sided exterior with deep, over-semicircular chapels.

"[10] Additionally, the Cerchi Chapel on "the ground floor of the Ex-Library wing at the end adjacent to the Ex-Refectory is evidently inserted into older peripheral walls which survived the 1423 fire.

One of the most influential, yet unknown, architects of the Early Renaissance, Michelozzo's designs paved the way for the rapid development of the Central Italian Palazzo type.

He transformed secular building and his adaptability in use of traditional forms enabled him to evolve good compromise solutions for distant regions, such as Lombardy and Dalmatia.