Palazzo Pretorio, Piazza del Podestà e Sala Veratti

Piazza del Podestà is where Varese's public life began. The medieval Broletto and Palazzo Pretorio anchor the old borgo, and around the corner opens the Sala Veratti, the frescoed refectory of a suppressed convent, today an exhibition space of the civic museums with works by Magatti.

Why it matters

This ensemble preserves the civic memory of Varese before the villas and the gardens: the square and its palace formed the seat of local government for the medieval and early modern town, close to the sacred pole of the Basilica of San Vittore. The regional heritage catalogue records the Broletto — also known as Palazzo Biumi — as a defining structure of the historic centre, standing not far from Palazzo Estense, and the piazza remains the best place to read the borgo's medieval layout. The Sala Veratti adds an artistic dimension: a richly decorated hall whose frescoes include works by the leading Varese painter of the eighteenth century, Pietro Antonio Magatti.

What to notice

The piazza's architecture expresses civic power: the Broletto, the traditional seat of communal administration, whose stonework and windows reward slow reading, and the adjacent Palazzo Pretorio that completed the government quarter. Lanes of the centro storico radiate toward the basilica and baptistery, making the medieval relationship between square, palace and church legible.

Nearby, the Sala Veratti was part of a larger complex: it served as the refectory of the former convent of Sant'Antonino, whose history begins in the mid-sixteenth century. Inside, the fresco decoration dominates, and among it stand out the works of Pietro Antonio Magatti (1691–1767), the Varese painter whose altarpieces also decorate the basilica. The hall is small but striking, and the Musei Civici use it for art exhibitions.

Context and history

The piazza grew as the administrative counterpart to the religious core of the borgo. The name Podestà recalls the chief magistracy of communal Lombardy, and the Broletto functioned as the town's council house through the centuries when Varese was a market town under outside domination — from the Seprio and the Visconti through the Sforzesco season of economic growth described in the regional catalogue's history of the centro storico. The heritage record places the Broletto, known also as Palazzo Biumi, among the principal historic structures of the quarter, a short walk from the ducal palace built later for the Este governors.

The convent story behind the Sala Veratti is documented in the civic museums' own account: in 1567, Cardinal Carlo Borromeo, applying the dispositions of the Council of Trent, ordered the suppression of the convent of Sant'Antonino at Luvinate with the idea of moving the Benedictine nuns to Milan. The Varese community opposed the transfer and offered three hundred gold scudi to build a new convent in the city; in 1568 the Curia authorised construction of the monastery, of which the Sala Veratti refectory survives. Acquired later by the municipality, the hall is now used for small exhibitions of the Musei Civici.