Palazzo Pretorio (Trento)
The Palazzo Pretorio or Palazzo Vescovile is the former bishop's residence of Trento . It represents a significant ensemble of buildings made up of three clearly delimited buildings, the Palazzo , the Torre di Piazza , also known as the Torre Civica, and the so-called Castelletto in the south. Today the palace, preserved in its medieval form, is the seat of the Tridentine Diocesan Museum .
location
The palace extends in a north-south direction on the eastern edge of the cathedral square ( Italian: Piazza Duomo ). On its east side is Via Giuseppe Garibaldi, whose course coincides with the Via Claudia Augusta Padana, the southern branch of the Via Claudia Augusta , which leads from the Roman Tridentum to Verona . In the south it borders with the Castelletto directly on the choir of the Cathedral of Trento .
history
The palazzo was first mentioned in a document in 1071 as Palatium episcopatus and is the most popular building in the eastern Alpine region in medieval manuscripts .
It was built on a previous building, the origins of which go back to Roman times. At the time of the Roman Tridentum, this area was outside the city walls immediately south of the Porta Veronensis . The curtis ducalis , first mentioned in 845 and built between the Roman city walls and the early Christian basilica built a little further south in the 4th century AD , probably leaned against the remains of this city gate, which was buried in the course of time .
In the 10th century, as a result of the Hungarian invasions, this area was also surrounded by a city wall, which was the basis for the further urban development of this area. This is how the Bishop's Palace, which was first mentioned in a document in the 11th century in connection with the consecration of the palace chapel of San Biagio and the chapel of San Giovanni Battista underneath, was created, almost directly based on the basilica .
In a document from 1147 the building is already described as having two floors. Further building elements appear in various manuscripts in the following years, such as the Castelletto in 1192, which today forms the southern end of the Palazzo Pretorio and directly borders the cathedral. In 1205, during the rebellious reign of Bishop Konrad II von Beseno , the palace was set on fire and badly damaged. His successor Friedrich von Wangen made further changes and alterations. In June 1255, Bishop Egno von Eppan moved the episcopal residence to the Castello del Buonconsiglio, which had come into his possession a few years earlier . After the bishop's move, the palace remained the seat of his guests and judges, which is why he adopted the name Palazzo Pretorio, which is more common today. During the occupation of the prince-bishopric by Meinhard II and his sons, the building complex came under the administration of the city of Trento for a short time, in which the city council held a meeting in 1339.
Under Bishop Ulrich IV of Liechtenstein , the women's prison was set up in the building, which still serves as a court palace, in 1499, after the city prisons had been housed for some time in the city tower adjacent to the north and in the palace itself. The slow decline of the former episcopal representative building began in the 16th century when Bishop Cristoforo Madruzzo ceded the north wing to a Monte di Pietà and this in turn rented the second floor to a medical college. With this donation, the palace was divided into an urban, secular wing in the north and an ecclesiastical wing in the south. This division resulted in a legal dispute between the city and the church in 1673 regarding the ownership of the palace, which was only settled in 1854. With the repurchase of the north wing of the city in the 1950s, the entire building came back into the possession of the Diocese of Trento , to which the Diocesan Museum moved in 1963.
description
The current appearance of Palazzo Pretorio goes back to the restoration work carried out between 1953 and 1964, during which the Romanesque building structure that was created under Friedrich von Wangen was restored. The Palazzo is the central part of the building complex, which also includes the Torre della Piazza, which is adjacent to the north facade of the palace, as well as the Castelletto at the south end. The latter acts as a link between the palace and the cathedral, the northern choir wall of which also forms the southern outer wall of the Castelletto.
This complex was created in three different construction periods, which are also reflected in the architecture of the buildings. In the first construction period, which probably continued until the 10th / 11th Dating back to the 18th century, that part of the palace was built that directly adjoins the Castelletto. The bishop's private apartments were presumably on the second floor and the Vidame's on the first floor. This oldest part is characterized by the irregular masonry of the facade and the structural changes that occurred in the subsequent period, such as the rectangular windows that were added in the 17th century and which can be found on both sides of the facade in this area. The offices and library of the Diocesan Museum are located behind the latter. On the west facade on Domplatz, the coat of arms of the Thun families is attached between two rectangular windows , in memory of the renovation carried out under Bishop Sigismund Alfons von Thun (1668–1677) in 1676.
A southern extension, probably carried out under Bishop Udalrich II (1022-1055), served as a private oratory , from which under Bishop Heinrich I (1068-1080) the two chapels of San Biagio, which served as a palace chapel, and San Giovanni Battista were created .
In the course of the 12th century, a second intensive construction period began. The original residential palace was extended north to the tower. In this new extension, two large halls were created, known as the Palatium Superius and the Palatium Inferius , which were used as courtrooms. At the same time, the two chapels of the southern extension, one on top of the other, were raised by one storey to form the Castelletto, a kind of residential tower. The bishops' private apartments were located on this top floor until the bishop's residence moved to Buonconsiglio. A narrow internal staircase leads from there to the office on the second floor and to a loggia directly above the choir of the cathedral, through which the bishop could witness the events in the cathedral. A stone staircase, which is no longer in existence today, provided direct access to the church. Today the two upper floors of the Castelletto are used as exhibition space for the diocesan museum, while the sacristy of the cathedral is on the ground floor .
The third construction period is to be settled during the term of office of Friedrich von Wangen (1207–1218). After the building was damaged in a fire under his predecessor Konrad von Beseno, Friedrich von Wangen not only limited himself to rebuilding it, but also had other conversions and extensions carried out. In the first years of his reign the Ghibelline dovetail pinnacles were created , which were the first of their kind in what is now the Trentino-South Tyrol region . At the same time, the two towers of San Romedio , the small bell tower of the palace chapel, and the Torre della Piazza serving as a prison tower were raised. The current appearance of the Palazzo Pretorio goes back to this third construction phase. In addition to the dovetail pinnacles, this is characterized by a series of coupled windows on the first and second floors on the east and west facade.
Further renovations took place during the reign of Bernhard von Cles and Carlo Emanuele Madruzzo . The memorial plaques attached to the north facade above the entrance to the Diocesan Museum also remind of this. The stone staircase on the east side in Via Giuseppe Garibaldi, which bears the coat of arms of Trento above the entrance gate, dates from the 17th century when the north wing of the palace was owned by the city. In contrast to the main portal attached to the west facade in 1780, this has been preserved. On the balustrade of this demolished portal, on October 10, 1920, the then mayor Vittorio Zippel read the announcement with which Trentino was officially attached to the Kingdom of Italy . It was dismantled during the restoration of the Palazzo Pretorio in the 1950s and 1960s and rebuilt in the courtyard of the town hall of Trento.
literature
- Aldo Gorfer: I castelli del Trentino. Vol. 3: Trento e Valle dell'Adige, Piana Rotaliana . Arti Grafiche Saturnia, Trient 1990, ISBN 978-88-85013-33-9 .
- Aldo Gorfer: Trento. Città del Concilio . Edizioni Arca, Gardolo 1995.
- Walter Landi: Palazzo Vescovile . In: Elisa Possenti, Giorgia Gentilini, Walter Landi, Michela Cunaccia (eds.): APSAT 5. Castra, castelli e domus murate. Corpus dei siti fortificati trentini tra tardo antico e basso medioevo. Schede 2. SAP Società Archeologica srl., Mantua 2013, ISBN 978-88-87115-80-2 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ A b Walter Landi: Palazzo Vescovile , p. 216.
- ^ Walter Landi: Palazzo Vescovile , p. 220.
- ↑ Aldo Gorfer: I Castelli del Trentino. Vol. 3: Trento e Valle dell'Adige, Piana Rotaliana , pp. 389-394.
- ^ Walter Landi: Palazzo Vescovile , p. 218.
- ↑ Aldo Gorfer: I Castelli del Trentino. Vol. 3: Trento e Valle dell'Adige, Piana Rotaliana , pp. 384-386.
- ^ A b Walter Landi: Palazzo Vescovile , p. 219.
- ↑ Aldo Gorfer: Trento. Città del Concilio , p. 82.
photos
Sketch of the Roman Tridentum with the Porta Veronensis and the early Christian basilica
East facade with stone stairs in Via Garibaldi
North facade with memorial plaques above the entrance to the Diocesan Museum
The memorial plaques with the two coats of arms on the north facade
Commemorative plaque with the coat of arms of the Thun family on the west facade
Former entrance portal of the west facade
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Coordinates: 46 ° 4 ′ 2 " N , 11 ° 7 ′ 19.2" E