Fraternita dei Laici

Today this building is part of the Law Court but it is still called by the name of Fraternita dei Laici. In fact it was originally built  for the Confraternity of St. Maria in the late XIV^th century.

The Fraternita dei Laici was a fraternity of religious laymen which was founded in 1262, thanks to some Domenicans monks. Until the XVIII^th century it was called “Fraternita di Santa Maria della Misericordia” and then simply “Fraternita dei Laici”. Its main task was to help the poor and needy and at first the rectors used to go round the town twice a week and beg for bread and money. In the XV^th century the Fraternita was rich enough to stop begging and was going to become richer and richer in the following centuries: many noblemen left it their possessions and money. 

During the Renaissance the Fraternita was quite important in town and well renown at the Granduke's court too. He was its 'protector' and had one of his representatives living in Arezzo with the task of controlling the activities of the fraternity. They were now in fact not only limited to public assistance but they also involved other fields, such as culture - it had its own schools of civil law and logics and gave citizens grants to study at the University of Pisa  and even abroad - and public works - the building of the 'Logge' in Piazza Vasari, the town churchyard, the water supplying system and an orfanage.    The construction of the building started in 1375, but some years later the works stopped because the town had lost its independence. In 1433 Rossellino continued to work, but the building was finished only one century later after Vasari did the drawings for the facade. In the end it was the result of different styles: Gothic, Renaissance and late Renaissance. 

In 1552 Felice da Fossato built the clock which is at the top of the building This clock is one of the most ancient still working today in Italy. There is a legend about it: it says Felice da Fossato was blinded when he finished to create it so that he couldn’t make any other one like this. The clock-face is organized according to the Tolemaic system: the earth in the middle, that is the light sphere, and around it the moon, a half white and half black sphere; finally the sun, a little golden sphere, which turns around them.