The building is in the square of the church of Saint Stephen.
It was built in the first half of the 16th century, when Serravalle became a quiet town under the control of Medici and no longer a place of battles between the troops of Pistoia, Lucca and Florence. Cosimo I dei Medici established the Podestà’s seat of Serravalle, belonged to the Captaincy of Pistoia, whose podestà worked in Serravalle and Larciano.
The building, which has become a private home, has a simple structure and it retains some sixteenth-century features, such as the portal crowned with ashlar blocks. On the facade there are the noble coats of arms relating to the podestarial office.
The podestarial institution remained substantially unchanged until 1838, when the Lorenas, grand dukes of Tuscany, incorporated the village into the civil jurisdiction of Pistoia.
Next to the building we can see the Praetorian Palace, the ancient seat of the civic magistracies, documented since the end of the 14th century. Today it has a modern shape, with traces of the original structure on the eastern side.