Palazzo della Ragione

Palazzo della Ragione stands on Piazza Mercanti in Milan, with a rectangular plan and an open ground-floor portico. Seven arches line each longer side, while two shorter sides rest on massive stone columns. Piazza Mercanti formed Milan’s political centre from the communal era until the eighteenth century, hosting assemblies and judicial proceedings.

Completed in 1251, the civic building first served as the Broletto Nuovo for public meetings and legal affairs. For more than five centuries, it anchored Milan’s political and social life. Spanish rule brought a civil court, and sixteenth-century changes reshaped the interior for judicial offices. In the eighteenth century, architect Francesco Croce added a floor while converting the building into the Notarial Chamber’s archive.

Ancient marble fragments remain in the outer walls, carrying inscriptions and other traces of Milan’s past. A high relief of a semi-woolly pig appears on the pilaster beside the second ground-floor arch. Roman-Celtic tradition connects this unusual animal to an old emblem of Milan, discovered during construction.