I palazzi municipali dell’Italia centrale: ricerca di un’identità per il potere pubblico

The Town Halls in Central Italy: Searching for an Identity for Public Authorities In 1875, Camillo Boito criticized the eclectic theory that promoted disparate architectural styles for public and private buildings, advocating instead for a new architectural language to overcome the “Babel of architecture”. However, an analysis of municipal buildings constructed between the Unification of Italy and World War I reveals that the search for an innovative language was marginal, particularly in Central Italy, where medieval-inspired appearances continued to prevail. Moreover, in the post-unification debate on the two Risorgimentos, which opposed the state as the “inventor” of the nation against the pre-existing nation, the idea of a revolution imposed from above prevailed over that of a popular revolution. In Central Italy, this concept led to the creation of new municipal buildings only in very few cases. The paper shows that the history of town halls, often preexisting buildings with a glorious past and sometimes originally intended for other purposes, has frequently been a history of significant transformations with medieval-inspired adaptations. In fact, at a time when many legal, administrative, and territorial reforms were being implemented, the issue of reconsidering the semantics of public buildings from a medieval perspective took on particular significance, especially in the provinces of the former Papal States and the territories of the former Grand Duchy of Tuscany. The emphasis on medieval styles during this period reflects a broader cultural and political inclination to invoke historical continuity and legitimacy amid the new national context.