The building covers three streets in the historic center: Via della Decima, Vico delle Carceri and Via Pullo. The façade is a decisive element of Piazza Municipio both in a spatial sense, as it delimits it laterally, and in a monumental sense. In fact, the square represents the city's center of gravity where everything is based on the symbolic meaning of the buildings: it is no coincidence that the episcope stands side by side with the town hall which, in a typical medieval urban layout, faces the cathedral. In front of the bishopric there are buildings used as private homes with the characteristic, constant over time, of having commercial activities on the ground floor.
The bishop of Sulci has been attested to Iglesias since the 14th century, when the official seat of the diocese was still Tratalias, but it is not known where his residence was. The first project of the episcope was drawn up in 1763 by the Piedmontese military engineer Saverio Belgrano di Famolasco, one of the first and most able speakers on the island of those architectural innovations with which the architects of the Savoy were able to turn, in a more sober and mathematical way, the suggestions of the Baroque in conscious contrast to the France of Louis XIV.
The Belgrano project was followed by three projects, again carried out by Piedmontese military engineers: that of Francesco Daristo in 1773, that of Cochis in 1778, and that of Marciot in 1782. In the end, a building was built, initially also home to the Seminary, in which the eighteenth-century sobriety of the first projects is harmonized with the historical style of the late 19th century.
The date shown on the inscription on the front door, “Munere/ Caroli Alberti I Regis/ Pia Domus/ Industria Erecta/ AN. 1835" indicates the remakes of the prospectus. In 1890, the building, ruined in some parts, was abandoned by the bishop who moved to the episcopal seminary (the former Jesuit college), while the City tried to appropriate it to use it as public offices. This is how the restoration is undertaken, funded by all the municipalities of the diocese. After the contract in 1902 to the impresario Felice Berci, the work lasted until 1906, also including the gallery that connects the episcope to the cathedral. Another twentieth-century transformation, which took place for functional needs, involved the D. wing on Via Pullo, where the stables and the space used to park carriages were located. The place is now home to cultural activities and Caritas. The inner courtyard has been divided to build an Auditorium. In 1957-58, a new flat terrace roof replaced the original multi-level roof with tile tiles.
The monument, characterized by its strong volume, is divided into three levels marked by marcapiano frames. The main entrance is accessed through three steps; the pediment has two episcopal basins in the jambs. At the portal, on the main floor, there is a balcony, the only protruding element of the façade. Supported by four shelves, it is equipped with a guardrail with columns.
From the base of the ground floor, plastered in faux stone, four giant pilasters start, which, before running out in the frame, divide the façade into three mirrors. Each area, moreover, is divided by the three vertical axes identified by the windows: on the ground floor they are rectangular, with a window sill and closed by wrought iron; they are decorated in fake tunnels above the lintel. In the middle floor, on the other hand, they are surmounted by flower oculi. On the top floor, in a decidedly neo-Gothic style, the white limestone curtains applied to the windows lighten the structure. This eclectic solution, alluding to similar Catalan modes present in Iglesias, helps to compose the various stylistic suggestions that come from the buildings of the square: the thirteenth-century cathedral, the purism of the town hall up to the classicist revival of the facades that face the bishop's palace.

History of studies
The palace is the subject of a brief fact sheet in Salvatore Naitza's volume on late-seventeenth-century and purist architecture (1992).

Bibliography
D. Pescamona, “New contributions to the knowledge of the activity of military engineers in Sardinia in the 17th century”, in Art Bulletin, 28, November-December 1984; A. Ingegno, Iglesias. A century of protection of architectural heritage, Oristano, S'Alvure, 1987;
S. Naitza, Architecture from the late 17th century to purist classicism. Nuoro, Ilisso, 1992, sheet 74;
F. Masala, Architecture from the Unification of Italy to the End of the 20th Century, series “History of Art in Sardinia”, Nuoro, Ilisso, 2001, pp. 22, 45.