Communal Palaces in the Venetian Territorial State (15th-16th Centuries): The Case of Treviso

The essay considers a series of examples of Communal Palaces from across the Venetian Territorial State (‘Terraferma’) with a particular focus on the city of Treviso. This case study well elucidates how the modification of public buildings most of the time led to a redefinition of central urban space, which even today maintains a crucial role in the public city life and cultural landscape. This is revealed by an array of mostly unpublished drawings proposing urban redevelopment projects. Although not always realised, they represent the key source for investigating urban history in a long-term perspective: better than any other document, they demonstrate how the city's urban fabric around Communal Palaces has been enhanced, developed and modified sequentially over an extended period of time because of their presence. More in general, in the Venetian State Communal Palaces were conceived as the institutional seats of the city council and the justice authority as well. Starting from the fifteenth century, the re-construction of these buildings was often seen as an opportunity for civic magistrates, sometimes together with Venetian officers, to plan intervention of urban renovation. These projects often led to the enlargement of central districts and to the renovation of city’s roads and squares. In conclusion, by looking at the specificity of the Communal Palace of Treviso, it will be possible to demonstrate to what extents these buildings interacted with central urban squares. Moreover, in many towns of the Venetian State they defined a permeable system by the relation between built and empty spaces and by a continuous process of adaptation. Rather than simply torn down and reconstructed, these civic buildings became very important driving forces of urban renewal