The Broletto is Brescia's medieval town hall, a compact 12th-century civic palace squeezed between the two cathedrals on Piazza Paolo VI. The building is still used for civic functions today, which makes it genuinely unusual — most Italian broletti of this age have been converted to museums or left as monuments. The main courtyard is generally accessible during working hours.
The facade facing the piazza is a mixture of 12th-century Romanesque and later additions. Look up at the Torre del Pegol, the octagonal bell tower attached to the complex, which dates from the 13th century. The Broletto complex demonstrates that Brescia managed to keep civic, religious, and commercial life crowded into a single tight corner of the medieval city for centuries.