The "Palazzo Comunale" (City Hall)
The "Palazzo Comunale" (City Hall) incorporates a series of
buildings which, over the centuries, have been added to the original building
purchased by the City authorities at the end of the 13th century.
Among these was the house of Accursio, law professor at the University
of Bologna. lnitially, it was used to store public corn supplies and to
provide space for a number of municipal offices.
Since 1336, when it was the residence of the Elders,
the supreme goveming authority of the City, it became the seat of the
City govemment. lt was renovated and expanded in the first half of the
15th century by the architect Fioravante Fioravanti.
Later, a clock to the Accursio Tower and, following the central European
custom, a merry-go-round with wooden mechanical figures (Madonna and Child,
Procession of the Magi) removed in 1796 (some of these statues still remain
and are kept in the Collezioni Comunali d'Arte, on the second floor) were
added.
Papal power played an increasingly important role in the City; symbolized
by the gilded statue of Boniface VIII (1301, currently on view in the
Medieval Museum) on the façade over the Balustrade of the Elders.
The Church ruling led to considerable architectural renewal especially
from 1506 onwards with the arrival of Pope Julius Il, at the time of the
fall of the Bentivoglio family.
The project for the two ramps of stairs forming the great cordonata (ramp
of wide shallow stairs) leading to the second floor dates back to this
period. It was finished towards the end of the 16th century and is attributed
to Bramante.
The façade, with the Madonna and Child by Niccolò dell'Arca
(1478) formerly gilded and polychromed placed where a portrait of Julius
II only lasted a few years (it was destroyed in 1511, when the Bentivoglios
attempted to regain power), was enriched in the mid-16th century with
a fine portal by Galeazzo Alessi.
In 1580 the large bronze statue of Pope Gregory XIII (a member of the
Bolognese Boncompagni family), laywork Alessandro Menganti, was placed
above this entrance. The monumental areas inside the City hall are memorials
to the city's historically momentous times and politica:l vicissitudes.
There is a second gallery on the first floor which today houses the City
Council Room. Its ceiling was frescoed between 1675 and 1677 by Angelo
Michele Colonna and Gioacchino Pizzoli for the Bolognese Senate. Its architectural
and allegorical paintings allude to the city's wealth, fame, art and culture.
On the second floor the Papal Legate's Chapel is off the Sala Farnese;
here, in 1530, Emperor Charles V was prepared for his coronation. We can
still see in the chapel the frescoes with stories from the Life of the
Virgin Mary, painted by Prospero Fontana (1562) when Carlo Borromeo was
Papal Legate, under Pope Pius IV.
This cycle is one of the most important documents of Bolognese painting
between Mannerism and the Counter Reformation.
The 1660decoration of the Sala Farnese, by a group of artists from the
generation following Francesco Albani, their Maestro (among whom, Carlo
Cignani and Lorenzo Pasinelli), highlights the most important moments
of the Church 's presence and the influence of papal power in Bologna
with episodes going from the Middle Ages to the 17th century.
This Hall leads to the Collezioni Comunali d'Arte- established in 1936,
housing paintings and furnishings from the Middle Ages to the 19th century.
lt also leads to the Morandi Museum, opened in 1993, that houses a collection
made up largely of works donated to the city by the artist's family.
Text by Carla Bernardini and Gilberta Franzoni
(Musei Civici d'Arte Antica - www.comune.bologna.it/iperbole/MuseiCivici)
