The Town Hall is a historic building in Cagliari, municipal seat from the Middle Ages until the early 20th century. A meeting of the Municipal Council, chaired by Mayor Ottone Bacaredda, on December 14, 1896, decreed the transfer of the Municipality from the old to the new headquarters, yet to be built on Via Roma, in the area in front of the port. The present appearance of the Palace is due to the 18th-century renovations, which transformed it according to the taste of the Piedmontese baroque.
On the main facade, framed by pairs of projecting pilasters, is an elegant arched portal surmounted by the City’s coat of arms and a plaque commemorating the stay, in 1535, of Emperor Charles V. An epigraph recalls the year the palace was renovated (1787) and the names of the five councilors to whom, together with fifty jurors and a vicar, the administration of the Castle was entrusted. During the twentieth century, the palace housed some classrooms for elementary school pupils and the G.P. da Palestrina Conservatory of Music, desired and created by the lawyer Gavino Dessì Deliperi, until 1970, when it was moved to its new and current location in Via Bacaredda. Since 2011, the City Council has decided to make the palace part of the Civic Museums system and to allocate it to host temporary exhibitions.
