Piazza delle Erbe Site Features

The square is defined less by its own edges than by the enormous building along one side of it. The Palazzo della Ragione, begun in 1218, presents its long flank here, raised on an arcade and carrying above it one of the largest medieval halls in Europe with no internal columns supporting the roof.

Beneath that flank runs Sotto il Salone, the arcade at ground level, occupied continuously by butchers, cheesemongers and salumerie. It is the oldest surviving part of the market's fabric and functions as a covered extension of the square rather than a separate building.

The remaining sides are ordinary Paduan arcaded houses of several periods, their porticoes continuous with the city's wider network of covered walkways. The effect is a room rather than a plaza: enclosed on all sides, shaded at the edges, open in the middle.

The morning market

Fruit and vegetable stalls set up early and clear by early afternoon, six days a week. This is the square's actual purpose and the hour at which it makes most sense.

Sotto il Salone

The arcade beneath the Palazzo della Ragione, lined with food shops that have been trading in the same spot for centuries -- cured meats, cheese, bread. It stays open when the outdoor stalls have gone.

The evening shift

From about six the square changes hands entirely: bar tables, students, and spritz. The transition happens within an hour and is one of the more striking daily changes in any Italian city centre.

Piazza dei Frutti, on the other side

The Palazzo's northern flank faces a second square, historically the fruit market. The two are a pair and are best seen as one space interrupted by a building.

The square sits at the centre of Padua's historic core, immediately west of Piazza dei Signori and a few minutes' walk from both the Duomo and the university's Palazzo Bo.

It is enclosed on every side, which is what makes it work as a market: no through traffic, continuous arcades for shelter, and a single large building providing shade for half the day. The ground is flat, like all of Padua.

Its position is the reason it has lasted. This is the point where the medieval city's commercial, civic and judicial functions met -- the market outside, the courts upstairs in the Palazzo, the political square next door -- and none of those three has moved.