In architecture, the Palazzo del Sedile, or the Seat, was a building often found in some southern Italian cities where the council of the Nobles held meetings for the administration of the city. In Sorrento there were two Seats, the Sedile di Porta near the main square and the Sedil Dominova.
Both were located in Via San Cesareo on the old decumanus. The Sedil Dominova is one of the last remaining architectural testimonies of this kind of parliament in southern Italy. Although the seats were officially the face of democracy, the history of the Sedil Dominova was linked to a dispute between the various Sorrentine families.
In 1319, furious quarrels broke out at the meetings in the Sedile di Porta between several members of the Sorrento nobility, even to the point of resorting to arms. Once the diatribes were over, the noble families from the western part of Sorrento such as the Mastrogiudice, the Sersale and the Vulcano, decided to abandon the Sedile di Porta and build a new one along Via San Cesareo, at the time the main street of Sorrento.
This Seat took the name of Domus Nova or Dominova.
In the 18th century its interiors were frescoed. In 1877 after five centuries of housing the meetings of the nobility, it became the seat of the Workers’ Society of Mutual Aid, as testified by an epigraph inside. Despite numerous restorations, the seat still maintains its original appearance.
