ABSTRACT
In 1299, the construction of a new town hall began in Florence – the Palazzo della Signoria, after the Signoria of Florence, the ruling body of what was the Republic of Florence. In terms of the history of the town hall as a building type, Siena’s Palazzo Pubblico, more than any other, has become established in western architecture as the most influential town hall complex of all. Industrialised, democratic societies increasingly began to reinterpret the town hall’s role within their lives and communities – a process which would gather pace and as the century progressed. Growing from a few northern German towns in the late eleventh century, the Hanseatic League developed as a commercial and defensive confederation of merchant guilds which came to dominate northern European trade around the Baltic and beyond until the sixteenth century.
