Palazzo del Podestà, Pistoia: Exterior, facade showing the coats of arms of the Podesta

Stands next to the Baptistry, visible on the left. The Piazza del Duomo is a market square.

Documented in use in 1300, the palazzo was lived in by the city administrators (mayors or magistrates) of justice: in Medieval times, the governor and, under Medici rule, the Florentine commissaries. The original building was centered around the square courtyard and corresponds today to the first four windows on the left, under which one sees the doorway aligned on a central axis. In the 1300s a new addition was made to accommodate the guards’ living quarters, the prisons and the stables. It was heavily restored ca. 1850, the front stuccoed and the coats of arms rearranged.