On 15 May 1540, on the feast of Pentecost, Cosimo I and his wife, Eleonora di Toledo, left the family mansion to install themselves, with solemn ceremony in Palazzo della Signoria, which was transformed from the Palazzo del Popolo and site of the civic government to being the Palazzo ducale, the residence of the Prince and his court.
Thus the famous building in Via Larga, erected a century earlier for Cosimo il Vecchio, lost its role as a symbol of the prestige of the most dominant family in Florence. Subsequently it became the residence of the members of the family of minor importance.
By now considered too austere for the Baroque opulence of the times, in 1659 the Grand-duke Ferdinando II sold Palazzo Medici to the marquis Gabriello Riccardi for forty thousand scudi.