Il Palazzo dei Consoli, clearly visible even from afar, is located in the historic center of Gubbio. Its facade faces the Piazza Grande, a hanging terrace, the political core of the fourteenth-century city.
The building houses the Civic Museum, inside which the Eugubine Tables can be seen, a precious bronze testimony of the Umbrian language.
The palace was erected between 1332 and 1349 based on a design by Angelo da Orvieto (commemorated in an inscription engraved above the arch of the entrance door) with the contribution of Matteo di Giovannello called il Gattapone.
With a rectangular plan, it has a great Gothic height accentuated by vertical pilasters that divide the front into three distinct parts.
The first floor is occupied by the portal accessed via a fan-shaped staircase; in the lunette there is a fresco by Bernardino di Nanni of the Eugenia with Madonna and Child between Saint John the Baptist and Saint Ubaldo (1495). The painting was heavily modified during the sixteenth century by Benedetto Nucci. On either side of the portal there are two fully centered biforas.
The second floor is adorned with six fully centered windows surmounted by a dentil cornice connecting the arches.
The palace features a crenellated crown embellished with pointed arches; the bell tower rises on the left.
The right side and the rear part, visible from Via dei Consoli, maintain shapes very similar to the facade. On the left flank, another building body was attached, consisting of a portico that descended into Via Baldassini.
Occupying the entire first floor is the Arengo hall, covered by magnificent barrel vaults, which also houses part of the city’s stone collection.
The Palazzo dei Consoli, like the unfinished Palazzo Pretorio, was built during the first half of the fourteenth century at a time of strong city expansion. There was indeed the need to have an adequate public space consistent with the economic and political power that Gubbio now exercised over its territory. Thus the ancient Platea Communis in the upper part was abandoned, and slightly lower down the splendid hanging square was created, a directional center that had to border all the districts, but be external to each of them and precisely for this reason an impartial connecting point in political matters.
Information about Palazzo dei Consoli
Piazza Grande, 1
06024 Gubbio (Perugia)
0759274298
serviziculturali@comune.gubbio.pg.it
https://www.comune.gubbio.pg.it
Source: MIBACT
