Municipal Palace of Lima, Town hall in Plaza Mayor, Lima District, Peru

The Municipal Palace is a yellow, two-story building facing the Plaza Mayor, with a long symmetrical facade. Its central block has a ground-level arcade of seven arches, above which sits a wide balcony with a dark balustrade and a central crest, topped by a balustraded parapet with three small roof ornaments. Projecting dark wooden balconies sit on the upper floor, and the roofline is flat. Its facade is neocolonial in style.

The original structure was built in 1549 under master builder Diego de Torres. The current building was completed in 1944 and replaced several earlier structures that had been damaged by earthquakes over the centuries.

The galleries hold a collection of 19th- and early-20th-century Peruvian paintings, most by the academic painters Ignacio Merino and Daniel Hernández. The Municipal Library opened on the second floor on 29 June 1945.

The palace faces the Plaza Mayor at the third block of Jirón de la Unión, on Portal de Escribanos. The Municipal Library opened on the second floor on 29 June 1945. Inside, a white marble staircase rises in two sections beneath a large stained-glass lantern that lights the stairwell.

In the galleries hangs a column of cipollino marble, a gift from the city of Rome in 1976, thought to have belonged to Emperor Nero's summer palace. Look for its green veins among the Peruvian paintings by Ignacio Merino and Daniel Hernández.