Palazzo Comunale di Alba site features

The palazzo faces piazza Risorgimento, with the cathedral of San Lorenzo on the same square. The two together are what a visitor means by the centre of Alba.

From outside it reads less medieval than its date suggests, and that is documented rather than impressionistic: the 19th-century intervention by Giorgio Busca is recorded as having reduced the building's medieval character.

The main staircase is the thing to see. Its walls carry frescoes taken from the church of San Domenico, so these are displaced works — painted for a church and now climbing a civic stair. Two stand out: a Pietà from the end of the 1300s and an Adoration of the Magi.

The salone del consiglio, the council chamber, holds the panel pictures. The Macrino d'Alba Virgin and Child of 1501 is the signed and dated one. Beside it an altarpiece of the Madonna and Child between saints Joseph and Anne, and the Concerto, which the record gives as attributed to Mattia Preti — an attribution, not a certainty, and reported here as one.

The Pietà on the staircase

Late 14th century, and not originally here: it came from the church of San Domenico, with the other frescoes on the main stair.

The Adoration of the Magi

The other fresco singled out from the San Domenico group, on the same staircase walls.

Macrino d'Alba's Virgin and Child, 1501

In the council chamber. A panel by the painter who takes his name from this town, dated to the year.

The Concerto

Also in the council chamber, and attributed to Mattia Preti — a Calabrian painter of the 17th century. The record gives it as an attribution and so does this page.

The Madonna with saints Joseph and Anne

An altarpiece in the same room, completing a small civic collection that a town hall is an unexpected place to find.

What Giorgio Busca did

The 19th-century intervention is itself a feature, in the sense that it explains the building: it diminished the medieval character of a 14th-century palazzo, which is why the date and the appearance do not match.