Palazzo dei Consoli: Gothic Civic Palace and Museum in Gubbio
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.6
- Popularity
- Medium
- Country
- Italy
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval
- Civilizations
- Papal States
- Site type
- Civic
- Remains
- Palace
On this page8 sections
History
Palazzo dei Consoli is a Gothic civic building in Gubbio, Italy, constructed between 1332 and 1349 during the communal period, when Italian cities were governed through municipal institutions and civic assemblies. Built on a large platform against the hillside above the town, it became one of the principal public buildings of medieval Gubbio and remains closely associated with the city’s civic history.
Construction in the communal period
The palace’s design has been attributed to different architects. Some scholars associate it with Angelo da Orvieto, while others credit the Gubbio architect Matteo Gattapone, both of whom were connected with major civic buildings in Umbria and central Italy. The design was probably inspired by the now-lost Palazzo dei Capitani del Popolo in Arezzo, built between 1270 and 1278. Palazzo dei Consoli and the Palazzo Pretorio across Piazza Grande are traditionally regarded as the work of the same architect.
Municipal construction accounts recorded expenditure of 16,336 Ravenna lire between 1332 and 1337. In 1888, Oderigi Lucarelli calculated this sum as equivalent to 643,000 Italian lire, while also noting that the building was still unfinished. The scale and hillside position of the project reflect the ambitions of Gubbio’s communal government to create a powerful civic centre.
Civic functions and later use
During the communal period, the palace’s Arengo served as a meeting hall for citizens’ assemblies. An Arengo was a large room intended for public gatherings, and its use gave the building a direct role in municipal decision-making. The palace is also described as the first building in Gubbio to have running water, which supplied fountains inside the building.
The bells of the palace have helped regulate Gubbio’s civic calendar. Since 1380, six successive large bells have been used in performances known as Sonatas. The bell-ringers’ group existed in practice from the time of the first bell, but it was formally recognized as a company only in 1981. The palace also carried a public disciplinary function, since an iron cage was formerly used to expose thieves and other criminals to public humiliation.
Since 1909, Palazzo dei Consoli has housed Gubbio’s civic museum. Its collections include an art gallery, ceramics, archaeology, Oriental art, and material connected with the Risorgimento, the nineteenth-century movement that led to the political unification of Italy. The former chapel houses the Iguvine Tables, bronze tablets bearing religious texts in the ancient Umbrian language. These texts provide evidence for pre-Roman Italian religion and language. The palace has cultural-heritage status in Italy.
Remains
Hillside palace and Piazza Grande façade
Palazzo dei Consoli has a rectangular plan, but its form is complicated by the steep site. A large stepped platform was built against the hillside, and Piazza Grande occupies a terrace corresponding to the lower levels of the building. From the southern street level to the top of the bell tower, the height reaches 60 metres.
The façade facing Piazza Grande is built of limestone or white stone. Its lower level contains two mullioned windows, windows divided by slender stone supports, on either side of a Gothic portal. Above them, six round-arched windows are arranged in pairs and separated by pilasters or lesenes, narrow vertical strips that articulate a wall. Crenellations crown the façade above a frieze of pointed arches. The portal’s lunette contains a sixteenth-century fresco, and a fan-shaped stone staircase rises from the square to the elevated entrance.
Bell tower and loggia
A square bell tower rises from the southern corner of the palace as though it grows directly from the building. A narrow arched loggia was added after the main construction. The tower and loggia face southwest toward the town and valley. The loggia formerly contained a tower clock, visible in photographs made before the beginning of the twentieth century. The openings for its clock faces were later filled, leaving lighter areas in the limestone.
The tower contains the Campanone, a large bell cast by Giovanni Battista Donati on 30 October 1769 and raised from Piazza Grande on 20 March 1770. It is accompanied by a medium-sized bell from 1678 and a small bell from 1289. The smallest bell predates the palace itself.
Arengo and museum interiors
The entrance leads to the Arengo, a large hall covered by a barrel vault. It now forms part of the civic museum, with high ceilings and stone walls surrounding displays of archaeological and medieval art and artefacts from Gubbio. The former chapel contains the bronze Iguvine Tables, while the museum also presents numismatic material and ceramics, particularly maiolica, a decorated tin-glazed earthenware produced widely in Italy during the late medieval and early-modern periods.
The Lapidario contains inscriptions, sculpted architectural decoration, and heraldic symbols removed from earlier locations, sometimes during rebuilding or demolition. Among its ancient Roman inscriptions is one commemorating the local magistrate Gnaeus Satrio Rufus. The collection also includes an ancient Roman marble sarcophagus with decoration.
Paintings and preserved artworks
The art collection includes a fourteenth-century painted crucifix attributed to the Master of the Gubbio Cross, the conventional name for an unidentified medieval painter known through works associated with Gubbio. It also contains a gonfalon, a ceremonial banner, by Sinibaldo Ibi, and a 1527 painting of the Immaculate Conception by Francesco Signorelli.
A large fresco dating from around 1350 depicts the Madonna and Child with Saint John the Baptist and Saint Ubaldo. It is attributed to Guiduccio Palmerucci and Mello da Gubbio. Saint Ubaldo was a medieval bishop of Gubbio who is venerated as the city’s patron saint.
