Palazzo dell'Arengo, Medieval palace in Piazza Cavour, Rimini, Italy.
Palazzo dell'Arengo is a medieval building on Piazza Cavour with pointed arches framing the ground floor loggia and multi-paned windows rising above. It now shares space with the adjacent Palazzo del Podestà as part of the Palazzi dell'Arte contemporary art museum.
Construction took place between 1204 and 1207, and the building initially served as a meeting hall for the city council in the late Middle Ages. Over time it was adapted for different purposes before becoming part of the city's art offerings in recent decades.
From 1681 to 1857 the upper hall served as a theatre. According to tradition, Carlo Goldoni, a student in Rimini, attended early performances there that inspired his later dramatic work.
The palace sits on Piazza Cavour, between the Palazzo del Podestà and Palazzo Garampi, and since September 2020 it houses the Palazzi dell'Arte Rimini (PART) modern and contemporary art museum, run with the Fondazione San Patrignano. The ground-floor loggia opens onto the square, so the arcades and the swallowtail battlements can be seen from outside without entering the exhibition rooms.
In the ground-floor loggia, where notaries kept their benches and justice was administered publicly, tradition places a large stone called the lapis magnum. Insolvent debtors were condemned to strike it three times with their bare buttocks while reciting the formula cedo bonis, formally surrendering their goods.
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