14. Piazza Nosetto and the Town Hall at the close of the 1400s

This is the oldest square in the town and the only one known to have existed since medieval times. The Town Hall has always been situated here. Initially it was the site of the copertum comunis (1347), where a kind of patriarchal form of democracy ensured that misdemeanours were punished. This later became the palatium domus comunis Birinzone (1393) and was restored in the 1400s, when it became the Palazzo dei Podestà and the seat of the Visconti and Sforza commissioners. In the centre of the square stood the municipal well and for a time a court of justice was held here. In fact, after the Milanese conquest in 1340, a so-called “coperto” (copertum iuris) was built in the middle of the square. This was a frescoed building were public trials were conducted and offenders were sentenced. When it fell into disuse it became a den of iniquity where squalor reigned and foul deeds were perpetrated and in 1471 it was demolished. Two adjoining houses appear in the picture: the one on the left was called the domus antiqua comunis and the one on the right was occupied by the “Podestà” (representative of the Milanese government).

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