On a commission from Giovanni di Paolo Rucellai, a local textile merchant, Leone Battista Alberti designed the upper part of the inlaid black and white marble facade of the church (1456–1470).
Giovanni di Paolo Rucellai was well-acquainted with the classics and he kept a Zibaldone into which he copied his translations of passages from Greek and Latin authors such as Aristotle, Boethius and Seneca the Younger.
Giovanni di Paolo Rucellai (1403–1481), Renaissance writer and patron of the arts
Don Giovanni | Pier Paolo Pasolini | Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina | Giovanni Bellini | Giovanni Riggi | Giovanni Boccaccio | Paolo Veronese | Giovanni Battista Pergolesi | Giovanni Battista Tiepolo | Giovanni Battista Guarini | Giovanni | Giovanni Trapattoni | Giovanni "John the Eagle" Riggi | Giovanni Gabrieli | Paolo Nutini | Giovanni Falcone | Villa San Giovanni | San Giovanni in Persiceto | Paolo Virzì | Giovanni Verga | Giovanni van Bronckhorst | Giovanni Tamagno | Giovanni Pacini | Giovanni Battista Pescetti | Paolo Troubetzkoy | Paolo Roversi | Giovanni Papini | Giovanni Hidalgo | Giovanni Domenico Cassini | Giovanni de' Medici |
At some time between Leo's return to Florence from Bologna on 22 December 1515 and his departure for Rome on 19 February 1516, he attended a performance of Giovanni Rucellai's tragedy Rosmunda, and perhaps also the Sophonisba of Gian Giorgio Trissino, in the Orti Oricellari, the famous gardens of Palazzo Rucellai, built by Giovanni's grandfather Giovanni di Paolo Rucellai.
Bernardo Rucellai (1448–1514), son of Giovanni di Paolo Rucellai and father of Giovanni di Bernardo Rucellai