As time went on the spirit of display in domestic architecture increased. Buildings like the Riccardi owe their admirable character largely to their moderation. The well-known remark of Vasari[91] that Cosimo de’ Medici had rejected a scheme for that building which had been prepared by Brunelleschi on the ground that so sumptuous a dwelling for a private citizen might excite envy, indicates the more modest feeling and sense of fitness, which as yet held in check the spirit of ostentation. But the boast of Filippo Strozzi that he would make his great palace excel all others in magnificence betrays the ambition that governed the later builders of the great houses of the Renaissance. [Illustration: FIG. 60.--Window of the Bartolini.] By the beginning of the sixteenth century the vigour of the Florentine Republic was spent, and its artistic ascendency was declining. Lorenzo de’ Medici had died, and the chief seat of artistic activity was, as we have already seen, transferred to Rome where the conditions were very different from what they had been in Florence during the earlier time. Ideals and aspirations were further changed, and the quest of material splendour was more than ever stimulated under the mundane ambitions of a luxurious and profligate society. Thus it was that in connection with the later neo-classic church architecture already considered there arose a corresponding movement in the erection of sumptuous palatial houses, though still for some time palatial architecture retained much of the earlier moderation in design. The great Roman houses of the early part of the sixteenth century have a dignity and grandeur that go far to redeem their incongruities. It was not, as we shall see in the next chapter, until men like Sansovino, Vignola, and Palladio appeared that the Roman influences bore their full fruit. CHAPTER VII PALACE ARCHITECTURE OF THE ROMAN RENAISSANCE