Description
The Palazzo del Capitanio, also called Palazzo di Cansignorio, looks onto Piazza dei Signori, Verona's drawing room, with its brick tower and inner courtyard. It was the fortified palace of the Scaligeri and later the home of the Venetian captains.
The oldest part is the brick tower, five floors high, with windows framed by two-tone arches. It was probably built by Alberto or Mastino della Scala, and it still dominates the square. Alberto della Scala's house is documented here as early as 1277.
From the square you can see the portal by Michele Sanmicheli, made between 1531 and 1533, the most elegant detail of the façade. Inside opens the courtyard closed off by the fifteenth-century great loggia, attributed to Pietro da Porlezza.
In the courtyard there is also the Porta dei Bombardieri, a work by Bernardino Miglioranzi from 1687, a rare example of Veronese Baroque. In the same courtyard a statue honors General Schulenburg, the last great commander of the Venetian army.
The palace bears the name of a ruthless lord. Cansignorio della Scala took Verona in 1359 by killing his brother Cangrande II in an ambush, and on his deathbed had Paolo Alboino eliminated too, so as to leave everything to his own sons.
Between 1359 and 1364 the lord rebuilt the palace, giving it its almost final layout: a fortified complex, with the buildings linked to one another and a large garden behind, protected by a high wall.
In 1405 Verona gave itself to Venice and the palace became the seat of the Venetian captain, hence the name. It was transformed several times, and between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries it housed the law court.
Under the building, excavations in the 1980s brought to light Roman dwellings from the first to the fifth century, early medieval structures and a Lombard chapel from 745. Those excavations gave rise to the Scavi Scaligeri, an underground exhibition route: beneath the elegant square lies another Verona, an older one.
The oldest part is the brick tower, five floors high, with windows framed by two-tone arches. It was probably built by Alberto or Mastino della Scala, and it still dominates the square. Alberto della Scala's house is documented here as early as 1277.
From the square you can see the portal by Michele Sanmicheli, made between 1531 and 1533, the most elegant detail of the façade. Inside opens the courtyard closed off by the fifteenth-century great loggia, attributed to Pietro da Porlezza.
In the courtyard there is also the Porta dei Bombardieri, a work by Bernardino Miglioranzi from 1687, a rare example of Veronese Baroque. In the same courtyard a statue honors General Schulenburg, the last great commander of the Venetian army.
The palace bears the name of a ruthless lord. Cansignorio della Scala took Verona in 1359 by killing his brother Cangrande II in an ambush, and on his deathbed had Paolo Alboino eliminated too, so as to leave everything to his own sons.
Between 1359 and 1364 the lord rebuilt the palace, giving it its almost final layout: a fortified complex, with the buildings linked to one another and a large garden behind, protected by a high wall.
In 1405 Verona gave itself to Venice and the palace became the seat of the Venetian captain, hence the name. It was transformed several times, and between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries it housed the law court.
Under the building, excavations in the 1980s brought to light Roman dwellings from the first to the fifth century, early medieval structures and a Lombard chapel from 745. Those excavations gave rise to the Scavi Scaligeri, an underground exhibition route: beneath the elegant square lies another Verona, an older one.