Domus Mercatorum

This guide to Domus Mercatorum on Piazza Erbe in Verona traces the Gothic guildhall Prince Alberto della Scala built between 1301 and 1304, replacing an older wooden guildhouse, as a courtroom for the city's wool merchants. Under its arched portico a magistrate called the podesta once ruled on disputes between traders, rulings serious enough to make or break a man's business in the very square where he sold his goods. You'll hear how the Scaligeri family's own rise as merchants shaped the building's purpose, and how, seven centuries later, a Veronese historian proposed giving the old courtroom an entirely different life. Stand under the portico and picture the traders once summoned there.