ABSTRACT
Beholding the vision of the whole city was considered one of the ways to appreciate the beauty of a civitas. The Milanese Bonvesin de la Riva suggested to those who wanted to have an idea of the shape, number and quality of all the buildings in Milan that they climb to the top of the town hall tower, from where a 360-degree view would permit them to admire a landscape, which he esteemed wonderful. In reality, the normalization of the urban fabric rooted in the political reasons had important consequences, immediately perceptible with the birth of the municipal institutions. Relocating the signs of the city’s ancient hegemony, particularly the bishop’s, led to the building of several municipal palaces, representing the new agents of the power, in a large part of the Po valley, at the end of the 12th century.
