Vox civitatis: Aspects of thirteenth-century communal architecture in Lombardy

This dissertation is a study of the development of monumental civic architecture in Lombardy in the last years of the twelfth and the first three quarters of the thirteenth century. The first half of the study is devoted to the Palazzo della Ragione in Bergamo, which is shown to be the earliest extant communal palace, or town hall, of a Lombard free city, dating from the years before 1198. Documentary as well as archaeological evidence is used to support the argument. This palace begins to establish what can be called a 'Lombard type' of civic palace, characterized formally by a single large salone, or meeting room, raised above an open ground floor portico.;The second part of the dissertation surveys in a more summary manner the thirteenth century Lombard palaces of Cremona (both the communal palace of 1206 and the Palazzo del Cittanova of 1256), Novara (1208), Como (1215), Milan (1233), Monza (ca. 1255-1265), and Piacenza (1281). New visual and archival information is presented to support the contention that already by the early thirteenth century this particular palace type had assumed very definite symbolic significance as a concrete embodiment of communal judicial ideals. It was this role as a symbol that resulted in the curious lack of architectural development of these palaces, so that by the end of the thirteenth century palaces were being built which no longer adequately served the requirements of civic government.;The functions of these palaces are studied, from their original purpose as meeting halls for the town councils to their later importance as the repositories of many of the official communal documents, especially the civic statute books. Available evidence demonstrates that these palaces were not market centers during the communal period.;It was this close association of an architectural form with a particular civic ideal, as opposed to any specific type of government, that ultimately caused the obsolescence of these palaces. When the free communes of the thirteenth century were replaced by the political tyrannies of the fourteenth, the palaces ceased to be built.