Palazzo della Ragione (The Hall of Justice)
With a length of 82 meters and a width of 27 the Salone or Palazzo della Ragione, once the seat of the town courts of Padua, is one of the widest ROOMS with a roof unsupported by columns in Europe. Acknowledged as one of the most famous civil monuments built in Europe in the age of the Communes, the erection of this building started in 1218.Between 1306 and 1308 Fra' Giovanni degli Eremitani turned the three chambers into which the upper floor was at first divided into a single hall, and designed a roof in the form of an upturned hull of a ship. In the first decade of the Fourteenth century, Giotto and his workshop were hired to fresco the walls of the great hall; unfortunately the cycle of frescoes was destroyed by the fire that wiped out the archives of the da Carrara family in 1420.The frescoes were restored by the Paduan master Nicoḷ Miretto with the cooperation of Stefano da Ferrara and other painters, and adhering to the studies by Pietro d'Abano, a wealthy scholar of the time.The cycle of frescoes is divided into 333 panels organized into three tiers, one above the other. It is an extremely rare astrologic cycle of frescoes painted in the Middle Ages that has survived to present day.The tight relationship between the paintings and the function of the place explains why various animals - both true and fantastic ones - were painted to form the sign of the various Courts. The functions performed by these courts were also linked to the allegories of Justice, Law, the Commune within the Seigniory, and to some frescoes depicting the Judgement by Solomon and a scene from a process. The Salone also preserves the "pietra del Vituperio" or stone of shame, where insolvent debtors, in their underwear, were forced to hit their bottom three times; and the huge wooden horse that was recently restored to its old splendour.