Palazzo della Ragione and the Torre Comunale

Situated in a scenic position in the piazza, the palace was constructed in the middle of the twelfth century and underwent important changes in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries which even reversed the direction it was facing. In 1483, arching and two ogival triple lancet windows were opened facing Piazza Vecchia and a covered stairway was built to the upper floor. In 1520, after a fire, a vaulted loggia on the ground floor and the large upper hall with a central Venetian-style window (1554) crowned with the lion of S. Marco, were built. Below, on the left side of the palace, the sixteenth century statue of Torquato Tasso can be found. In the upper hall, frescoes from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, originating from churches and private houses, are preserved; among these is the Tre Filosofi (Three Philosophers), painted by Bramante on the façade of the palazzo della Podestà.
On the right-hand side of the palace rises the campanone (bell tower). It was built as a symbol of the noble Suardi family in the XII century. Even today, at ten o’clock every evening, it still chimes 100 times as a reminder of the time when the town’s citizens were warned that the doors of the walled town were closing.