TOWN HALL
A building in neoclassical style.
PALAZZO COMUNALE (TOWN HALL)
Carnival period was typically a time of celebration.
The idea of building an imposing new town hall was first suggested by the papal legate, Monsignor Giovanni Francesco Stoppani, in anticipation of Pergola being awarded the status of town in a bull issued by Pope Benedict XIV on the 18th of May 1752.
Construction began in 1750 under the architect Giovanni Francesco Bonamici of Rimini but was completed in 1760 under the direction of the architect Raimondo Compagnini, who chose to lower the building by one floor to blend into the urban fabric more harmoniously.
The building features a large ground-floor loggia, once jokingly referred to as the ‘bullirone’ or ‘boiling pot’. This unusual name derives from the loud noise, thought similar to that of a boiling pot, that would emanate from the music, singing and dancing of the carnival festivals held there.
The entrance hall houses a group of bronze statues by Vito Pardo, sculpted in 1910 to honour the 50th anniversary of the Pergolese pro-unification insurrection on the 8th of September 1860 and accompanied by stones bearing the names of Pergola’s fallen in war. The coat of arms of the Della Rovere family, painted on sandstone in the 16th century, can be seen at the end of the grand staircase connecting the ground to the noble floor.
Entering the Council Room one is struck by the monumental, painted and partly glazed altarpiece attributed to Francesco della Robbia, also known as Friar Ambrogio, which can be dated to the second decade of the 16th century. The work was placed in the Palazzo Comunale in 1932. The work depicting the Virgin of the Assumption between Saints George, Jerome, Francis and Anthony of Padua comes from the church of the former Franciscan convent (now partly ruined and partly inhabited), located in Montevecchio, a hamlet of Pergola.