Piazza del Popolo in Todi

Piazza del Popolo in Todi houses Palazzo del Capitano del Popolo. It is an Italian Gothic style building, completed in 1293.

At the beginning, the building was called "Palazzo nuovo del Comune" in order to distinguish it from the previous one, and was used as a courthouse. On the first floor there was the Courtroom of Justice (now the council hall), while the second floor houses the offices of Justice (now the local Museum).

The façade is characterized by two levels, which are opened triple-lancet windows and simpler triple lancet windows, which are accessible through a large external staircase built in 1267. The windows of this building are of artistically gorgeous. On the ground floor there is a large porch, once the residence of local archers, where there are walled nineteenth-century memorial stones. Entering on the left, there is the Sala del Capitano bearing fragments of thirteenth and fourteenth-century frescoes on the walls and a great "Crucifixion" of the fourteenth century on the right, however, there is the Sala del Consiglio Generale, which is part of the adjoining Palazzo del Popolo.

Along with the Palazzo del Popolo, Palazzo del Capitano houses the Civic Museum and Gallery. Linked to the Palazzo del Capitano del Popolo, with which it shares the beautiful staircase, the Palazzo del Popolo is one of the oldest town halls in Italy. The building is a Lombard-Gothic building, erected from 1213 and enlarged in 1228. Like the Palazzo del Capitano, this building has a porch on the ground floor, which is accessible through round arches. Above the ground floor there are two floors with four-lights windows, topped by Ghibelline dovetail battlements. Next to the palace is the bell tower, which dates back to 1330: the tower was modified in 1523, with the application of a clock, made by Tebaldo Persiani da Fabriano. The palace was also called "Town Hall" (Palazzo del Comune) or "Old Town Hall" (Comune vecchio) or "Palazzo del Podestà" because it was the first residence of the rulers of Todi. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the building was used as a theatre. The first floor houses a section of the Civic Museum and Gallery.