Discover Palazzo del Comune e Loggia della Repubblica, Noli

The Palazzo del Comune of Noli is a civic building of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, standing in the historic centre of the town, in the province of Savona.

It was the seat of a state. The palazzo was the seat of the consuls and of the government of the Republic of Noli — the republic constituted on 7 August 1192 by decree of Henry VI of Swabia and ended on 2 December 1797 by Napoleon's Italian campaign.

It is attached to the old waterfront. The historic centre presents a porticoed front — today on the Aurelia, once directly on the beach — and connected to that portico is the medieval Palazzo del Comune, with the civic tower.

Beside it stands the loggia. The Loggia della Repubblica Nolese is near the palazzo and dates to the same period. The building itself underwent various transformations between 1797 and 1820, in the years immediately after the republic ended.

The type is a medieval civic palace with its tower, built into a portico. The Palazzo del Comune is connected to the porticoed front of the historic centre — the arcade that was originally the working face of a seafaring borgo, which the record compares to Sottoripa in Genoa.

The civic tower is the vertical statement. It belongs to the palazzo rather than standing apart, which is the normal arrangement for a town that governed itself.

The seaward facade is articulated with four polifore. Ogival — pointed — and partly blind, partly of restoration. A blind polifora is a window opening closed in masonry: the outline survives where the opening did not.

The sundial is restored and is part of the composition. A meridiana on a civic facade is public equipment as much as decoration.

The council chamber is a later room inside an older building. The Sala del Consiglio is of the seventeenth century, inside a fourteenth- and fifteenth-century palace, and it holds fresco fragments older than itself.

The loggia is the palace's public room. Contemporary with it, carried on columns, one of which has a bugnato capital of the late Trecento or early Quattrocento — rusticated blockwork on a capital, an unusual and datable detail.

A civic palace here is built onto the arcade rather than set back from it. The portico came first as the working face of the borgo; the palazzo is collegato to it, which is why the seat of government sits over a commercial colonnade.

Polifore are expensive and this facade has four. A multi-light window needs slender mullions and cut stone heads; four of them on one face is a statement of what the building was for.

Some were filled in and some were put back. The record describes them as in parte cieche e in parte di restauro — part blocked, part restored — which is the honest state of most medieval civic facades.

The frescoes were moved, not painted in place. The fragments in the Sala del Consiglio come from the porta di San Giovanni: detached from a gate and installed in a council chamber, a conservation decision rather than a decorative one.

Next door, a palace was built around a tower instead of replacing it. Palazzo Viale-Salvarezza was rifuso among pre-existing medieval buildings and raised around the twelfth-century torre della Marina and a smaller second tower — the same reuse that turned so many of Noli's seventy-odd towers into the walls of later houses.

What was this building?

The seat of the consuls and of the government of the Republic of Noli — a state that lasted from 7 August 1192 to 2 December 1797, governed by a Podestà and a Consiglio dei Consoli e dei Capi di casa.

Who are the plaques under the loggia for?

Dante Alighieri, who cites Noli in the Purgatorio; Cristoforo Colombo, on 31 May 1476, leaving for Portugal; and Giordano Bruno, in 1576.

Can I go inside?

No opening hour or admission is published by anyone. The Sala del Consiglio, which holds the fresco fragments, is the part you cannot count on; the facade, the tower, the loggia and the plaques are always visible.

Where did the frescoes come from?

From the porta di San Giovanni, one of the town gates. The fragments of late-medieval fresco cycles were brought into the seventeenth-century council chamber.

Why are some of the windows blocked?

The four ogival polifore on the seaward facade are described as partly blind and partly of restoration — some were filled in over the centuries and some were reopened in restoration.

What happened to the building after 1797?

It underwent various transformations between 1797 and 1820, in the two decades after the republic it housed was ended by Napoleon.

What is the palace with the cannonball?

Palazzo Viale-Salvarezza, built around the twelfth-century torre della Marina for Antonio Viale, sent by Genoa in 1643 to break a plot to hand Noli to Savoy. Until recent restorations its facade held a cannonball from the brig Wizard, fired in the bombardment of 1808.