Ascoli Piceno italy

PALAZZO DEI CAPITANI DEL POPOLO


It was the seat of the Town Hall from 1400 to 1456, then the residence of various governors, papal legates, prefects, authorities that have contributed towards the history of the city. The name derives from the fact that the Palace was the seat of the Captains of the People, the omnipotent magistrature of popular estraction at the end of 1300. It was built in travertine towards the thirteenth century, enlarging an older pre-existing public building that the changing political conditions of the city warranted. The people strengthened by their guilds and reacting against the rich, absolute managers of public affairs in the past, were able to form a Government of their own with a judge as head, known as Captain of the People as opposed to the authority that had always been the expression of the ancient aristocratic Commune. An inscription on the travertine stone, walled in on the right of the main entrance, dates 1393 and gives the information Giacomo de Fortiguerra from Pistoia is the Captain of the Palace. The restoration of the posterior façade, realized by Cola dell'Amatrice, started the cycle of the works that was to give a new face to the Palace composed initially by a ground floor and a first one. The transformation, instead, was so profond as to almost lose trace of the building's ancient features of medieval art, including the battlements.
The Palace suffered a lot of serious damages, above all, in the anterior façade during the fire ordered by the papal commissioner Quieti in order to drive out a group of rebels who had barricated themselves in the Palace (1535). It continued for an entire night and brought about serious damages, sending up in smoke amongst other things the copious municipal archives, including statutes, chapters, deliberations, reforms that would have been able to shed a lot of light on medieval Ascoli. In the new works the rectangular framed windows replace the spacious lights of the Gothic three-mullioned windows. The same façade becomes wider because it incorporates the tower. As an eternal recognition towards pope Paul III, who had re-established through force the peace between the opposing rebellious Ascolan factions, restoring to them the possession of eleven castles previously taken away from them, a new portal monument is built, on which is to be put a statue in travertine in his honour (1549). The posterior front, in three stylistic orders, goes back to 1520 and carries the signature of Cola dell'Amatrice. The redundancy of the frames, the heavy and powerfully decorated windows, not even the dark research of violent contrasts of the masses allow Cola the best expression of his art.
In the interior of the Palace there is a marvellous colonnaded courtyard with a three-floored loggia built following the design of Camillo Merli in 1551.
After a restoration lasted for many years, the Palace today offers an archeological insight of great interest. It allows visitors to delight in unbroke, superimposed structures belonging to living quarters of the Republican period, rooms of the Empirial era paved in opus signinum, in opus spicatum, in opus latericium framed by walls with faces in opus reticulatum or in mixtum, a strong medieval conformation formed by square blocks and river pebbles expertly selected. The opening of this area creates the first example of an urban archeological area transformed into a museum in the Marches.


Go To Virtual Tour of Ascoli Piceno