Explorer Brescia

Piazza della Loggia is a Renaissance square in Brescia laid out from 1433 under Venetian rule. It is framed by the Palazzo della Loggia, the old and new Monte di Pietà with Roman inscriptions set into their walls, and arcades below a clock tower with a 16th-century astronomical clock. A memorial recalls the bombing of 28 May 1974.

The Palazzo della Loggia is Brescia's town hall, a Renaissance palace on the west side of Piazza della Loggia. Begun in 1492 and completed in 1574 after interruptions, with designs attributed in part to Jacopo Sansovino and Andrea Palladio, it has an open arcaded loggia on the ground floor, an upper storey in white Botticino marble and a large lead-covered roof.

The New Cathedral is Brescia's main church, built from 1604 to 1825 on the site of the early Christian basilica of San Pietro de Dom, beside the round Old Cathedral. Its dome by Luigi Cagnola rises about 80 metres and was rebuilt after damage in the Second World War; inside are paintings by Romanino and Moretto and a monument to Pope Paul VI.

The Old Cathedral, known as La Rotonda, is a circular Romanesque church in Brescia begun around 1100 on the site of an earlier basilica, and the city's winter co-cathedral. It keeps the crypt of San Filastrio, the red marble sarcophagus of Bishop Berardo Maggi from 1308 and paintings by Moretto and Romanino.

The Capitolium was the main temple of Roman Brixia, built in AD 73 under Emperor Vespasian for Jupiter, Juno and Minerva. Rediscovered in 1823 and partly rebuilt, it shows a Corinthian portico and three cellae with marble floors, and belongs to the Brixia archaeological park with the Roman theatre; the bronze Winged Victory found here in 1826 is displayed on site.

Brescia Castle stands on Cidneo hill above the old town, a site used since the Bronze Age and crowned by a Roman temple in the 1st century AD. Its oldest standing parts are the 14th-century Visconti keep and the Mirabella tower, with Venetian bastions and a drawbridge gate added in the 16th century; it houses an arms museum and a Risorgimento museum.

San Salvatore-Santa Giulia is a former convent in Brescia founded in 753 by the future Lombard king Desiderius and his wife Ansa, and now the city museum, the Museo di Santa Giulia. Its 9th-century basilica of San Salvatore with Carolingian-era frescoes is part of the UNESCO site Longobards in Italy, inscribed in 2011.

The Pinacoteca Tosio Martinengo is Brescia's civic art gallery, opened in 1851 with the collection of Count Paolo Tosio and enlarged in 1884 by Count Leopardo Martinengo da Barco. Reopened in 2018 after nine years of renovation, it shows paintings and sculpture from the 13th to the 18th century, with works by Vincenzo Foppa, Lorenzo Lotto and Paolo Veneziano.