Located in Piazza della Repubblica, the city’s center, the building is connected to the adjacent Palazzo del Podestà by an underpass, making it a single complex. Built around 1200, it was certainly restored and remodeled by the Trinci family. The large loggia that characterizes it, in fact, used to be connected directly to the Palazzo Trinci, a stately home, by a bridge that was lost in the mid-eighteenth century.
The decorations of the large loggia are quite significant: externally above the arches, the four cardinal virtues (Wisdom, Justice, Fortitude and Temperance) are represented that oversee the exercise of political power, a work attributed to Giovanni di Corraduccio. On the same wall, on the inside, on wooden thrones above the city walls, the three theological virtues are represented: Faith is symbolized by a man holding a cross to his chest and a chalice in his lap, Hope is symbolized by a woman in the act of praying, and Charity by a woman nursing two children. The group includes a fourth figure representing Harmony, personified by a robust woman who has convinced two citizens to embrace. The rest of the painted decoration depicts the mythical foundation of the city of Foligno and the birthplace of the Trinci family, always committed to ennobling their origins for political-propaganda purposes.
In 1470, just five years after printing spread to Italy, the Orfini brothers (Emiliano, Mariotto and Antonio), engravers and papal minters, began the famous printing art of Foligno. The intelligent brothers, after having made their own home available, called and financed three prominent personalities of the time – Johann Numeister and two Germans Craf and Stephan Arndest – who created authentic masterpieces. It was here that on 11 December 1472, 200-300 copies of “The Divine Comedy” were printed for the first time.
Since 2012 the building has contained the Printing Museum that shows the various stages of the spread of the art of printing in Foligno.