In the northeastern section of the square, however, worthy of mention are the Bella Italia monument, donated to the city by Victor Emmanuel II in memory of the Ten Days of Brescia, and Porta Bruciata, a defensive gateway dating back to the Roman-era circle of walls.

[13] Later a first clock, placed on the same turret, was completed in 1447 and decorated not only with the coats of arms of the rulers and the city, but also with two statues sculpted by Andriolo Vigevano depicting Mary and the archangel Gabriel.

[22][23]These arrangements should be understood not only from a practical point of view, i.e., for the purpose of reuse of stone materials found on site, but primarily and above all by virtue of a certain humanistic sensibility, which at the time was precisely established in Brescia: as the scholar Theodor Mommsen had the opportunity to observe, this lapidary museum was much desired by a number of Brescian intellectuals and humanists, who had a marked sensitivity to the classical age and the Roman past of the city, so much so that Roman inscriptions and epigraphs were placed on the walls of the buildings erected, not coincidentally at the level of the observer.

[27] Work began that, according to the plans of the ducal engineer and other technicians and architects, would later lead to the laying of some stones on the bed of the Garza River so that a much larger building could be built and stabilized above it.

[29] At this point, the deputies wanted to carefully select, among the various projects submitted, the one that was considered the most suitable for the palace:[30] among the ancient sources, the scholar Baldassare Zamboni, in the eighteenth century, hypothesized that the design of the loggia built could be attributed to Bramante.

[9] The beginning of the construction works was inaugurated during a solemn public event organized specifically to celebrate the construction of the Palace: in the presence of the then Bishop of Brescia, Paolo Zane, as well as many members of the clergy, municipal authorities, magistrates and a large number of citizens, the first stone was laid and then blessed by the Bishop himself on March 5, 1492,[33][34] according to the chronicler Elia Capriolo:[35] Paolo Zane, our Bishop, accompanied by a large number of clergy and people, as well as the magistrates of the city, laid the first stone of the foundation on March 5, 1492.The first phase of the construction of the palace was completed around 1510, when Brescia was under French rule, although the works had been suspended since 1508, the year in which the League of Cambrai was founded.

In a few years, the sack of Brescia in 1512 by French troops under the command of Gaston of Foix would not only devastate the city, but also destroy the myth of the so-called Brixia magnipotens.

[37][38] The city's priorities changed radically, from artistic and cultural splendor to the recovery of basic vital functions;[39] the building of the Loggia was not completed until 1574, almost a century after the start of construction.

Towards the end of the second half of the 16th century,[40][41] the Brescian city authorities strongly promoted the resumption of the construction of the Palazzo della Loggia, which had been halted for several years due to the vicissitudes of war and political events.

[45] The first change in the eastern side of the square in this sense was the donation made by the Venetian authorities to the citizens of Brescia in 1517, which in fact deprived the New Citadel of its military function and turned it into a public asset: This led to the demilitarization of the area of Porta Bruciata and the adjacent drawbridge, with the consequent dismissal of the castellan of the same gate in 1531; later, in the same area, several shophouses were built and architectural interventions such as the construction of stone portals on the face of Porta Bruciata were promoted.

On the occasion of these demolitions, the Brescian magistrates also wanted to build a new astronomical clock, and in December 1543 they decided to start the construction, entrusting the internal mechanism to the craftsman Paolo Gennari from Rezzato.

[54] On the north-eastern side of the square stands the Monument to the Beautiful Italy, erected in 1864 by the sculptor Giovanni Battista Lombardi to replace the Venetian column with the Lion of St. Mark on top, which had been demolished by revolutionaries in 1797.

In addition to its architectural beauty and central role in the life of the city, the square became infamous for the massacre that killed 8 people and injured 102 others during an anti-fascist demonstration on May 28, 1974.

In the square there are three of the four so-called "talking statues" of Brescia,[note 5] a group of sculptures from different periods on which the Brescians used to post anonymous messages criticizing the rulers.