Piazza Maggiore
Medieval civic square carved from demolished houses, ringed by a basilica, guild halls and a former banking arcade.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Piazza Maggiore in Bologna starts at a strip of stone cut into the wall of Palazzo d'Accursio, where medieval brickmakers and cloth merchants once checked their work against the city's official measures, the piede, the braccio and the pertica. It traces why the council carved its own units into stone once it cleared houses here to build one trusted open floor for trade and government. Along the way it looks up at two small marble eagles on the facade and the local claim about who carved them. Try pressing your own fingers to the carved measuring line by the gate before you move on.
This audio guide was created using AI.