Palazzo dei Trecento Historical Timeline

Origins

Built from around 1185 and substantially completed in the thirteenth century, it housed the Maggior Consiglio of Treviso's independent commune -- the three hundred citizens the building is named after.

Turning points

After 1339 it continued as the seat of civic administration under Venetian rule, its function surviving the change of sovereignty largely intact.

Influential people

The upper hall was frescoed over several centuries, and fragments of that decoration survive alongside the coats of arms of the podestà who governed here.

Cultural evolution

The open loggia beneath was never enclosed. It served as covered public space -- market, shelter, meeting ground -- for eight hundred years and still does.

Present-day significance

The Good Friday bombing of 7 April 1944 brought much of the building down. It was rebuilt through the 1950s using salvaged material, and a line of lighter brick was deliberately left visible to mark how far the destruction reached.