The palace is part of that nucleus of city buildings that emerged in the Middle Ages. Cited several times in documents of the time as Palatium Novum of the Municipality, the palace was built around the XI-XII century to fulfill public civil functions and intended to accommodate assemblies and town meetings. In the large hall, with impressive volumes, the remains of notable frescoes depicting war episodes datable to around the end of the 12th century are visible on the end walls, as well as characters from sacred history signed by Grisopolo from Parma and datable to the mid-13th century. In the fifteenth century the porticoes were erected and in 1472 the Clock Tower was raised, so named for the public clock designed by the mathematician and astrologer Bartolomeo Manfredi. In 1700 the thirteenth-century three-mullioned windows were closed and large, bright windows were opened. In the first half of the 1900s, the building was brought back to its original structure by the Mantuan architect Aldo Andreani, eliminating the Baroque superimpositions.