Palazzo dei Priori, Volterra site features

The palace occupies Piazza dei Priori, the city's most important square, standing right against the Duomo among the Palazzo Pretorio, the bishop's palace, Palazzo Inghirami and the houses of Volterra's leading families. It is the building the square is named for, and it is built entirely in stone.

The façade is austere and the detail is all horizontal: it is softened by string courses marking the floors, and crowned by semicircular merlons — rounded rather than square-topped — probably made in the 16th century.

Then the thing to look for, and it rewards walking up close. The façade is decorated with glazed terracotta plaques carrying the coats of arms of Florentine families: Bertini, Corbinelli, Del Benino, Della Stufa among them. Glazed terracotta is a Florentine technique, the arms are Florentine families, and the reason is plain — from the 15th century Volterra was governed by Florentine commissioners, having passed into the orbit of the lily city.

Above everything rises a pentagonal tower with two crenellated levels, built around the 16th century and rebuilt in its upper part after the earthquake of 1846. A five-sided tower is unusual, and worth noticing from the square.

The ground floor has changed more than anything else. It was originally open, through three portals whose outlines can still be made out in the façade — only one survives, and it is the present entrance — reached by a short flight of steps. Behind them was a large atrium used for meetings and assemblies: a town hall whose ground floor was a covered public room.

On the first floor was the palace's most representative room, the Sala del Consiglio, and the council chamber is still among the municipal functions housed here today, with the registry and the mayor's office.

• The oldest communal palace in Tuscany — begun on a commission of 1208 and finished in 1257.
• The epigraph in leonine hexameters — walled into the palace, and the reason the 1257 completion is known.
• The glazed terracotta plaques — Florentine family arms on the façade, among them Bertini, Corbinelli, Del Benino and Della Stufa, because from the 15th century Volterra was governed by Florentine commissioners.
• The semicircular merlons — rounded rather than square, crowning the façade, and probably 16th-century.
• The pentagonal tower — two crenellated levels, built around the 16th century and rebuilt at the top after the earthquake of 1846.
• The ghosts of the three portals — the ground floor was once open through three doorways still discernible in the façade; only one remains, and it is the entrance you use.
• The string courses — horizontal mouldings marking the floors on an otherwise plain stone front.
• The Sala del Consiglio — the palace's most representative room, on the first floor, and still the council chamber.
• Its two museum lives — it held the Guarnacci collection from 1785 to 1877 and was the first home of the city picture gallery before the paintings went to Palazzo Minucci-Solaini.