L’invenzione ottocentesca del palazzo comunale italiano

In early modern Italy, the “town hall” did not represent a clearly defined or recognizable category or term, let alone a specific architectural typology. It was only after the French Revolution that the foundations were laid for a profound rethinking of the role of municipal buildings, not only as administrative centers but also as symbolic spaces. This established a model that was soon adopted in Italy as well. To simplify a more complex evolution, we could say that the history of 19th -century Italian town halls is the story of the spread of this new French-inspired typology and its hybridization with the old ancien régime’s local models. This gave rise to two recurring but contradictory trends: on the one hand, the growing demand for space for municipal bureaucracy; on the other, the need to turn the town hall into a highly patriotic monument. The tension between these two trends is the leitmotiv thread of the history of Italian town halls at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.