Piazza dei Signori Site Features

The square is defined by brick rather than stone, which is what makes it feel different from the marble squares further south in the Veneto. The Palazzo dei Trecento presents a long wall of it, pierced by a row of tall arched windows above an open ground-floor loggia.

The Palazzo del Podestà opposite is a nineteenth-century rebuilding in medieval style, and the Torre Civica beside it is genuinely old. Telling those two apart is harder than it should be, which was the intention.

Continuous arcades run around the remaining sides, carrying the upper floors and giving the square its enclosed, room-like quality.

The Palazzo dei Trecento

The thirteenth-century council hall, its open loggia still used as a covered public space.

The arcades

Continuous porticoes on the surrounding sides, where the square's cafés set out their tables.

The Torre Civica

The medieval bell tower, and the one genuinely old vertical element in the square.

The routes out

Calmaggiore leaves the square toward the Duomo; the canals and the fish market lie a few streets the other way.