Palazzo Pubblico

The Palazzo Pubblico dominates the Piazza del Campo in Siena, Italy, built mainly between the late thirteenth and mid-fourteenth centuries as the seat of the medieval Sienese republic's government. Its curved brick facade, echoing the shell shape of the piazza it faces, is topped by the slender Torre del Mangia bell tower, and its interior council chambers hold the fresco cycle Allegory of Good and Bad Government, painted by Ambrogio Lorenzetti in the 1330s to instruct the city's magistrates in civic virtue. The building has continued to house Siena's municipal government into the present day, making it one of the longest continuously used civic buildings in Italy. It forms part of the UNESCO-inscribed Historic Centre of Siena.