# Exterior view [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [FIORAVANTI, Aristotele]() - Date: 1451-1500 - Technique: Photo ## Commentary Fioravanti designed the new façade of the Gothic Palazzo del Podestà. He prepared a model in 1472, but the execution was delayed until 1484-94. The façade, one of the most innovative and overtly all'antica designs of the 15th century, faces San Petronio and dominates Bologna's main square. It is organized as two storeys: a massive ground storey arcade rusticated with faceted masonry \(each block embellished with a rosette\) and articulated with Corinthian half columns, and an upper storey set back to allow for a balcony arranged with round-arched windows and ornamental Corinthian pilasters. The immediate model for the façade, which recalls such imperial prototypes as the Colosseum, was undoubtedly the Benediction Loggia \(early 1460s; destroyed\) in front of Old St Peter's, Rome, which was still under construction when Fioravanti was called to Rome in 1471. ## Related artworks - [Exterior view]() - [Exterior view]() - [Interior view]() - [Interior view]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()