Palazzo del Podestà, Palazzo della Ragione

The complex of buildings in Piazza delle Erbe and Piazza Broletto were erected in the period of the Medieval communes. We don't know whether, next to the Rotonda di San Lorenzo, built in the second part of the eleventh century, perhaps at the time of Beatrice di Canossa Lorrena, there were other building dating to the period of Matilde di Canossa; we are not even certain of what function they may have had. It is however certain that in the early thirteenth century the so-called Old Palace, "Palatium Vetus", stood where the Palazzo del Podestà now is. It was one of the municipal administration centers of the time. The building is in fact mentioned in a plaque originally placed on Porta Mulina, which bears the date 1190, the same year the bridge was built: “et domus est burgi domus urbis facta per ipsos”. How many public buildings were in this area is something that is still being studied, and the precise location - Piazza delle Erbe or Piazza Broletto - of the building erected in 1190, is not known with certainty.