Palazzo della Ragione Historical Timeline

Origins

Construction began in 1218, when Padua was a self-governing commune with the wealth and confidence to build civic architecture on this scale. The building was raised deliberately between two existing open spaces, dividing the market into the herb square on one side and the fruit square on the other.

Turning points

In 1306 the friar-architect Giovanni degli Eremitani roofed the whole upper floor as a single volume, removing the internal walls that had previously divided it into three chambers. That decision produced the hall as it stands.

Influential people

Giotto, working in Padua on the Scrovegni Chapel, is credited with the original astrological fresco cycle in the hall. It burned in 1420. The replacement, painted between roughly 1425 and 1440 by Nicolò Miretto and Stefano da Ferrara, follows the same astrological scheme and is what survives -- some 333 panels, one of the largest painted cycles of its kind anywhere.

Cultural evolution

A tornado tore the roof off in 1756 and it was rebuilt to the original profile. The hall served as courtroom, council chamber and civic theatre by turns; the market below simply carried on underneath regardless of what the city was doing upstairs.

Present-day significance

The hall is now an exhibition space within Padua's civic museum system, while Sotto il Salone at ground level remains a functioning food market -- one building still doing both of the jobs it was built for.