Michelozzo

...the most independent architect after Brunelleschi. Ludwig Heinrich Heydenreich and Paul Davis, Architecture in Italy, 1400-1500

Florentine native and the influential quiet man of the early Renaissance architecture, Michelozzo di Bartolomeo Michelozzi (1396–1472) was the son of Florentine tailor. As with many Florentines he started working as a goldsmith at an early age working on in the mint, before training with Ghiberti and working with Donatello on several projects, including the Tomb of Anti-Pope John XXIII in the Baptistry and the open-air pulpit on Prato's cathedral.

Michelozzo is best known as the classicizing architect favoured by the elder Cosimo de’ Medici for over three decades. Michelozzo, unlike the prickly genius Filippo Brunelleschi, had a more agreeable character and also worked very quickly, completing almost everything he started on (having the Medici millions behind him helped). The two became so close that Michelozzo accompanied Cosimo on his two year exile in Venice (1433-34). Michelozzo's sons, Niccolò and Bernardo, grew up in the Medici household and became leading Humanists.