Palazzo della Loggia

Palazzo della Loggia (the Loggia palace, or the Loggia) is a Renaissance palace situated in the eponymous piazza in Brescia.

In 1484, the city authorities of Brescia decided to dedicate a new building to its citizens to express good governance. It was planned to replace the original loggia and to add to the monumental architecture of the Piazza della Loggia, which was coming up at the same time.

The function of the building during the Venetian domination of Brescia was to host the hearings of the Venetian Podestà, whose Consiglio Cittadino and the Collegio dei Notai demonstrated the centrality of the building in city life, both geographically and politically.

The first proposal was by Tomaso Formentone, an architect from Vicenza, who designed a wooden model. But Formentone was not a prolific architect, and was at the time also involved in the Basilica at Vicenza. It is unlikely, therefore, that he was a chief designer of Brescia's biggest building. More likely, per references to him in documents as a carpenter, Formentone's contribution was operational. Given the similarity between this building and the others by Donato Bramante in Milan, it has been suggested that the design of the building was possibly the latter. Formenton's idea involved building completely in wood, but this proposal was immediately abandoned, in favour of a host of Venetian and Lombard stonemasons and marble from Botticino.

The first stone was laid in 1492. The works were directed by Filippo Grassi, a stonecutter who had already been active in the city for over a decade, and whose professional culmination was this project. The French invasions starting in 1509 and the sack of Brescia in 1512 interrupted construction. The work resumed in 1535 and the palace was completed in 1574 after numerous interventions by the most famous architects of the time, including Jacopo Sansovino, Andrea Palladio, and Lodovico Beretta who completed the building.

Much of the driving force behind the construction of the Piazza and the Palazzo was by the ruling Venetians, and there are inspirations, particularly in the use of white stone, roof design and the upper windows that stem from Venice. However, the Brescians wanted to establish their distinctiveness as well, and hearkened back to Roman antiquity by embedding discovered Latin inscriptions into the Piazza.

Text adapted from “Palazzo della Loggia (Brescia)” on Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Palazzo della Loggia ranks #2,347 of 7,738 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #183 of the 452 mapped in Italy. Its Wikipedia articles were opened 1,534 times in the last 60 days, more than 60% of the atlas. The nearest day-trip guide is Brescia, 1 km away. See how Italy compares in the castle statistics.

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