Description
Palatium Vetus, now home to Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio of Alessandria, is the first municipal building of the city of Alessandria and preserves important traces of medieval history. The Gae Aulenti architectural firm managed its restoration, enhancing the historic structure, allowing legibility of the stratification of almost eight centuries of history, but also to merge contemporary taste: the lightweight glass and steel structured roof of the inner courtyard allows this open yet sheltered area to be enjoyed.
The building, town hall during the Middle Ages, then home to Spanish governors, the House of Savoy and Napoleonic Prefects, was the centre of the political and administrative life of the city for many years. The layout of the original nucleus of medieval origin preserves several Gothic decorative elements, such as the three-light windows, frescoes and decorations of the indoor environments. It could be called broletto, namely seat of the city government in the 13th and 14th centuries which features a specific type of construction with a portico on the ground floor and a spacious upper room.

The collection includes works of painters and sculptors with strong links to the territory in a period that stretches from the latter decades of the 18th century to the second half of the 20th century. The stars are artists such as Pellizza from Volpedo, Morbelli, Barabino, Bistolfi, Carrà and Morando. A section of the collection is dedicated to the battle of Marengo and makes it possible to trace a crucial period in local and international history.
The museum exhibition in the ‘ice-house’ of Palatium Vetus preserves the finds emerged during the work carried out in the palazzo: an extraordinary journey through history, the Roman epigraph of Calpurnia, originating from Villa del Foro and restored thanks to Fondazione Cral, was presented in the courtyard.
On the outside, one of the Hundred Canons donated by the city during the wars of Italian Unification is walled up in the corner of the Palazzo.