Construction of the first communal palace on the Peristyle began no later than the mid-13th century. The ground floor of this palace consisted of a loggia where trials were held, and official contracts entered into. The first document that mentions the loggia dates to 1267. Parts of it are preserved in the ground floor of the café housed in the Grisogono-Cipci Palace on the Peristyle.

Between 1358 and 1367, the new communal palace was completed on St Lawrence’s Square (Platea Sancti Laurentii), the construction of which is first mentioned as far back as 1312, in the City Statute of that year.

19th June 1426 – Pope Martin V Colonna examines claims made by citizens in a letter requesting permission to demolish the Church of St Lawrence on the square, and relocate it to a more appropriate location within the city walls. It appears that this was a Gothic church that was completely remodelled and transformed into the Town Hall with a loggia on the ground floor.

Split’s citizens request the government’s aid to repair the communal palace.

The date of the inscription by the Count of Split, Marco Morosini (1432–1434), on the façade of the present-day “Old Town Hall”: Here is the heavenly Mark [the Republic of San Marco], who watches over all the seas around and so watches over the city of Split. Here the city’s Count Marco, of the house of Morosini, at the time of the Most Serene Francesco Foscari, had restored and enlarged the Town Hall and your shrine, o St Lawrence, in the year 1433. The inscription probably does not exaggerate with respect to the construction works, because at the top of a trifora on a nearby building (demolished in 1821) was the Morosini coat of arms (today in a private collection in Omiš). In fact, this building housed the original Town Hall, and from the 18th century onwards a communal theatre.

The coat of arms of Count Vittore Delfino on the bifora of the Chapel of St Lawrence and on the base of a statue of the saint that stood on the corner of the building indicate the date of the building’s completion.

The city’s coat of arms, dating to the time of Count Demetrio Quirino (today in the Split City Museum), which was installed on the façade, indicates that the building is completed at around this time.

The sculptor and architect Andrea Alessi works on the palace complex. He becomes a citizen of Split, and is granted a building plot upon which he can build a house or workshop, in the Sdoria area (the south-eastern part of what was once the emperor’s palace).

The proveditore generale Antonio Priuli requests an estimate of costs for the restoration of the count’s palace, which will “become unfit for use” if it is not repaired.

The first recorded opera is performed at the theatre (founded prior to 1742) that forms part of the Count’s Palace complex.

A tablet is installed in the western part of the Town Hall’s porch, which contains measures approved by the senate for determining the size of the containers for grape must, lime, and wood. Earlier, the measures for grains and fats had been inscribed alongside the Renaissance flagpole column.

The Count’s Palace, along with numerous other buildings in the city, is damaged in the strongest earthquake ever recorded in Split.

The municipality informs the city that the prisoners in the Count’s Palace, as well as the guards in the former town hall, are in danger because the buildings are in a state of disrepair.

The larger part of the late Gothic Count’s Palace complex is demolished, giving the People’s Square its current appearance.

The Austrian authorities claim the town hall and transform it into a military guardhouse with an apartment for the military commander on the upper floor.

The old town hall is restored in the Gothic Revival style, and becomes the Municipal Hall.

The Ethnographic Museum opens (it will be moved to a more fitting space in 2004).

An emergency meeting of the State Anti-Fascist Council for the National Liberation of Croatia is held at the town hall, at which the first People’s Government of Croatia is elected.

In the part next to the Old City Hall, high school students met, who would form circles almost always in the same place.