During the Renaissance revival of classical culture, ancient Roman elements were often replicated in architecture, both built and imagined in paintings.

The open colonnaded court that is at the center of the palazzo plan has roots in the cloisters that developed from Roman peristyles.

They were replaced by Michelangelo's unusual ground-floor "kneeling windows" (finestre inginocchiate), with exaggerated scrolling consoles appearing to support the sill and framed in a pedimented aedicule, a motif repeated in his new main doorway.

[citation needed] The new windows are set into what appears to be a walled infill of the original arched opening, a Mannerist expression Michelangelo and others used repeatedly.

Unlike other wealthy families however, Cosimo wanted to start fresh and cleared the site before he began building.

Following their return to power the palace continued to be used by the Medici until 1540 when Cosimo I moved his principal residence to the Palazzo Vecchio.

The Riccardi family sold the palace to the Tuscan state in 1814 and in 1874 the building became the seat of the provincial government of Florence.

The design was meant to be simpler but set in such a way that it still showed the wealth of the Medici family through use of materials, the interior and the simplicity.

[11] The ground floor contains two courtyards, chambers, antechambers, studies, lavatories, kitchens, wells, secret and public staircases.

The fifteen-year-old Galeazzo Maria Sforza was entertained in Florence on 17 April 1459, and left a letter describing, perhaps in the accomplished terms of a secretary, the all-but-complete palazzo, where his whole entourage was nobly[13] accommodated: "[...] a house that is — as much in the handsomeness of the ceilings, the height of the walls, smooth finish of the entrances and windows, number of chambers and salons, elegance of the studies, worth of the books, neatness and gracefulness of the gardens, as it is in the tapestry decorations,[14] cassoni of inestimable workmanship and value, noble sculptures, designs of infinite kinds, as well of priceless silver — the best I may ever have seen..."[15]Niccolò de' Carissimi, one of Galeazzo Maria's counsellors, furnished further details of the rooms and garden: "[...] decorated on every side with gold and fine marbles, with carvings and sculptures in relief, with pictures and inlays done in perspective by the most accomplished and perfect of masters even in the very benches and floors of the house; tapestries and household ornaments of gold and silk; silverware and bookcases that are endless... then a garden done in the finest of polished marbles, with diverse plants, which seems a thing not natural but painted.

[citation needed] The many portable artworks of the highest quality that were in the palace during the Medici years have long been removed; most are now still in Florence in museums.

The most important section of the palace with wall-paintings is the Magi Chapel, famously frescoed by Benozzo Gozzoli, who completed it around 1459.

Other decorations of the palazzo included two lunettes by Filippo Lippi, depicting Seven Saints and the Annunciation, both now at the National Gallery, London.