Palazzo dei Sette

Medieval Orvieto gave its guild magistrates a palace of their own. Palazzo dei Sette on Corso Cavour has since served papal governors, courts and the post office; today its atrium hosts exhibitions and cultural events. It stands beside the Torre del Moro.

Why it matters

The palace embodies the moment when Orvieto's guilds became part of the city's government. The Signori Sette—seven magistrates drawn from the city's guilds and trades—were instituted in 1292. Around 1300, Pope Boniface VIII granted the tower and adjoining land to the Commune for a palace along Corso Cavour; the magistrates had moved in by 1319, giving the building the name it still carries. Later uses included the seat of the papal governor, a prison, an academy, civil courts and the main post office. Restoration in 1996 returned the palace to cultural use.

What to notice

The facade on Corso Cavour is a composite. The grand portal carries the arms of Pope Pius V and was carved by Ludovico Scalza during the sixteenth-century governor's-palace works. Inside is a grand staircase. The courtyard's glass-and-iron covering was added by Paolo Zampi in 1899 when the palace became the post office. Papal heraldry and governor inscriptions from the 1590s record successive phases of ownership. The Torre del Moro rises at the palace's side, forming a distinctive corner in medieval Orvieto.

Context and history

Cardinal Albornoz suppressed the Signori Sette in 1354, and the building passed through periods of decay and partial reuse. Part became the church of San Rocco in 1523, and shops occupied the loggia arches. Antonio da Sangallo the Younger received a plot here in 1532, though he never built on it. The main campaign to create the Palazzo del Governatore began in 1553, likely under Raffaello da Montelupo, and resumed in 1571 under Ippolito Scalza. A prison occupied the ground floor in the seventeenth century; the Accademia dei Risvegliati met on the piano nobile in the early eighteenth. Civil courts sat here from 1831 until Zampi's post-office conversion in 1899. After the post office left in 1996, restoration returned the palace to cultural use; its atrium continues to host exhibitions and events.