Palazzo del Podestà

Begun in the first months of 1348 and conceived as complementary to the great Palazzo opposite it, together with the intervening square it forms part of an incredibly audacious example of architectural town-planning imagined and then created by a free people, makers of their own history. The ratio of proportions applied in this singular construction are the Classical ones based on the principle of the golden rectangle,“rettangolo aureo”. Building work was not completely finished, since one wing was only built to the level of the square, in fact, along the edges of the corners of the building facing the street one can clearly discern the mountings prepared for continuing the work. Its structure is highly original as its extraordinary stability depends entirely on support from the side walls and from a single octagonal central column from which a series of ribs open up and which carry the weight of the upper floors which in turn are supported by false arches. It is now the Town Hall.The spacious room at the top of the building, called “la larga”, served as a prison until the 19th century. The section in brickwork which punctuates the tones of the 14th century ashlar was added in the 18th century.