In the designing of chapels and oratories the architects of the early Renaissance attained conspicuous success, these edifices presenting fewer structural limitations and being more purely decorative in character than the larger churches. Such façades as that of +S. Bernardino+ at Perugia and of the +Frati di S. Spirito+ at Bologna are among the most delightful products of the decorative fancy of the 15th century. [Illustration: FIG. 162.--COURTYARD OF RICCARDI PALACE, FLORENCE.] [Illustration: FIG. 163.--FAÇADE OF STROZZI PALACE, FLORENCE.] +FLORENTINE PALACES.+ While the architects of this period failed to develop any new and thoroughly satisfactory ecclesiastical type, they attained conspicuous success in palace-architecture. The +Riccardi+ palace in Florence (1430) marks the first step of the Renaissance in this direction. It was built for the great Cosimo di Medici by _Michelozzi_ (1397-1473), a contemporary of Brunelleschi and Alberti, and a man of great talent. Its imposing rectangular façade, with widely spaced mullioned windows in two stories over a massive basement, is crowned with a classic cornice of unusual and perhaps excessive size. In spite of the bold and fortress-like character of the rusticated masonry of these façades, and the mediæval look they seem to present to modern eyes, they marked a revolution in style and established a type frequently imitated in later years. The courtyard, in contrast with this stern exterior, appears light and cheerful (Fig. 162). Its wall is carried on round arches borne by columns with Corinthianesque capitals, and the arcade is enriched with sculptured medallions. +The Pitti Palace+, by Brunelleschi (1435), embodies the same ideas on a more colossal scale, but lacks the grace of an adequate cornice. A lighter and more ornate style appeared in 1460 in the +P. Rucellai+, by Alberti, in which for the first time classical pilasters in superposed stages were applied to a street façade. To avoid the dilemma of either insufficiently crowning the edifice or making the cornice too heavy for the upper range of pilasters, Alberti made use of brackets, occupying the width of the upper frieze, and converting the whole upper entablature into a cornice. But this compromise was not quite successful, and it remained for later architects in Venice, Verona, and Rome to work out more satisfactory methods of applying the orders to many-storied palace façades. In the great +P. Strozzi+ (Fig. 163), erected in 1490 by _Benedetto da Majano_ and _Cronaca_, the architects reverted to the earlier type of the P. Riccardi, treating it with greater refinement and producing one of the noblest palaces of Italy.