Piazza Grande, a place of the mind
In the
Italian language,
Piazza Grande means "the large
square". A more appropriate translation would be "an italian concept
similar to the Northern American Main Street".
Piazza Grande is the archetypal downtown place: it is usual where
the Duomo (main cathedral) is located, and the Town Hall is seldom
very far. In short, it is the historical,religious and administrative
center of the town: almost always, at the time of its establishment -
somewhere around the X to XII century - it also represented the
urbanistic center of town.
I do not think we can very well understand today what object of awe
the typical Piazza Grande must have been for the contemporary town
dwellers: a huge expanse, dominated by a titanic white temple which
stood in dramatic contrast with a city where the average house must not
have been much more sophisticated than a one storey stone hut.
A Piazza Grande, by this name, does actually exist in many Italian
towns: my home town Modena, for instance, has a remarkable Piazza
Grande, inhabited by an impressive romanesque Duomo. Some other towns
rename it, elaborating on the same concept: Bologna has a Piazza
Maggiore ("larger square") perhaps as a hint of a superiority
complex, Milano - with characteristic precision - opted for
Piazza Duomo (and perhaps so does Parma, but I am not sure)
while the more civically (or politically) minded Firenze opted for
Piazza della Signoria. Siena has a Piazza del Campo which
underlines physically its being the barycenter of the city life, not
to speak of its being the theater of the all important Palio; while
it is very hard to decide if Venezia's Piazza san Marco is central
in any geometrical meaning of the word, although its psychological
centrality is easily ascertained.
There is a town where Piazza Grande is in another state altogether:
the town is Roma where Piazza san Pietro is in Vatican City (Rome
has no shortage of important squares, such as Piazza del Popolo, the
Campidoglio, i Fori Imperiali, Piazza di Spagna and many, many
others, however, I would contend that S. Pietro is the large
one).
Some towns are schizophrenic about their Piazza Grande - I cannot say
if a person from Padova indicates Piazza Grande as being in the awe
inspiring Piazza del Santo - the historical pilgrimage station by
the S. Antonio sanctuary - or in Prato della Valle - which is
very large, but an unlikely Piazza Grande - or by the, more
historically correct, split pair of Piazza delle Erbe and
Piazza delle Frutta, surrounding the beautiful Palazzo della
Ragione.
The (not unusual, as in Ferrara's case) Erbe (herbs) and
Frutta (fruits) names recall that one of the many uses of
Piazza Grande was hosting the main market. This is sometimes still the
case, as in Ferrara and Padova. Some other towns moved the market
to a place considered more proper, often just a few hundred meters
away. This is what happened in Modena, with the covered market in
via Albinelli: until the cleaning that took place a few years ago, it
was possible to discern traces of the ancient market in the Piazza
from the blackening that the fires, lit by the vendors for heat during
the winter, left on the walls of the Duomo.
Whatever its actual name or current destination may be, inquiries for
Piazza Grande in an Italian town are unlikely to go unanswered:
I am sure that people in Torino have their idea of where Piazza
Grande is, elusive as its physical location may be (speaking for
myself, Turin's Piazza Grande is in fact very elusive, but I am
not a native).
It is because of this that a famous Lucio Dalla song can be called
Piazza Grande and draw instant recognition; and I am sure that
every Italian knows by instinct that, close to the center of each of
Italo Calvino's invisible cities lies an equally invisible
Piazza Grande.
Note: Most European towns I visited do have a square which is similar to
Piazza Grande in disposition, meaning and naming (the German
"
Platz", overseen by the
Rathaus, and the Spanish
plaza). So Piazza Grande may actually be
a european idea, but someone else will have to comment on whether its
place in the European mind is similar to the one it occupies in the
Italian mind.