Everything about The Palazzo Pubblico totally explained
The
Palazzo Pubblico (
town hall) is a palace in the city of
Siena, located in the
Tuscany region of
Italy. Construction began in
1297 and its original purpose was to house the republican government, consisting of the
Podesta and Council of Nine.
The outside of the structure is an example of Italian
medieval architecture with
Gothic influences. The lower story is stone; the upper crenelatted stories are made of brick. The
facade of the palace is curved slightly inwards (concave) to reflect the outwards curve (convex) of the
Piazza del Campo, Siena's central
square of which the Palace is the focal point. The campanile or bell tower,
Torre del Mangia, was built between
1325 and
1344 with its crown designed by the painter,
Lippo Memmi. The tower was designed to be taller than the tower in neighboring rival
Florence; at the time it was the tallest structure in Italy. It was fitted with a mechanical clock during the mid 14th century.
Its design was used as the basis for the
Dock Tower in
Grimsby, England constructed in 1852.
Odense City Hall (Denmark)
was greatly inspired from Palazzo Pubblico.
Frescoes
Nearly every major room in the palace contains
frescoes. These frescoes are unusual for the time in that they were commissioned by the governing body of the city, rather than by the Church or by a religious fraternity. They are also unusual in that many of them depict secular subjects instead of the religious subjects which are overwhelmingly typical of Italian art of this era.
The most famous of the secular frescoes are three panels in the series on government in the Hall of the Nine (also known as Sala della Pace) by
Ambrogio Lorenzetti.
These frescoes are collectively known as
Allegory and Effects of Good and Bad Government.
The Allegory of Good Government depicts the personification of Justice as a woman. She gestures to the scales of balance, held by the personifcation of Wisdom floating over her throne. On the viewer's left, a convicted criminal is beheaded; on the right, figures receive the rewards of justice. At Justice's feet, the personification of Virtue, also, unusually for the time, portrayed as a female figure, passes virtue among twenty four faithfully rendered and recognizable images of prominent male citizens of Siena. The men face towards the largest figure in the image, a judge located in the center right. The judge is surrounded by additional personifications including Peace, who is represented as a fashionable, white-clad contemporary female figure with elaborate blonde hair. (Then as now,
blonde hair was
fashionable and seldom entirely natural; it wasn't the dominant natural hair color for Italian women from this region, and it was common for women to lighten their hair by streaking it with
urine and heating it in the sun.)
The allegory carries a strong social message of the value of the stable republican government of Siena. It combines elements of secular life with references to the importance of religion in the city at the time. The figure of Justice resembles the figure of Mary, Queen of Heaven, the patron saint of Siena, on a throne. The Judge reflects the tradition in the Christian Last Judgment to have God or Christ judging the saved on the left; the damned on the right. While classified as medieval or proto (pre)-renaissance art, these paintings show a transition in thought and an evolution in theme from earlier religious art.
Flanking the Allegory are two other paintings on perpendicular walls: Effects of Good Government and Effects of Bad Government. Both these frescoes depict a recognizable view of Siena and its countryside.
In the allegorical representation of Good Government, the prosperous townspeople are trading and dancing in the streets. Beyond the city walls is a lush countryside in which crops are harvested.
In the allegory of Bad Government, crime is rampant and diseased citizens roam a crumbling city. The countryside suffers from drought.
Many of the frescoes in the Palace, including these, are badly damaged. This is allegedly due to salt once stored in the basement of the building. It is theoretically possible that the salts wicked moisture down from the walls, causing the plaster to dry excessively and the frescoes to flake off.
Other notable frescoes include the mysterious fresco of
Guidoriccio da Fogliano at the siege of
Montemassi, located in the Great Council Hall (Sala del Mappamondo). The fresco is traditionally attributed to
Simone Martini, although there's debate on the subject. The wall has circular markings left by the circular wall-mounted (now lost) map of the world by
Pietro Lorenzetti.
Siena was decimated by the
Black Death in
1348. Half the population including both Ambrogio and Pietro Lorenzetti, artists responsible for frescoes in the Palazzo as well as other public buildings in Siena, died in the plague. The republic's economy was destroyed and the state quickly declined from its position of prominence in Italy. The
Franciscan religious order rose to power in the city. The stagnation over the following centuries meant that while Siena didn't develop during the
Renaissance as did other Italian cities, it was also preserved both from bombardment during
World War II and from modern development.
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