Piazza Paolo VI and Piazza della Loggia from Brescia, Italy

Piazza Paolo VI is Brescia’s main square, as well as the largest, is part of a greater square system. It dates from the medieval period. Here one finds the Duomo Vecchio and the Duomo Nuovo, as well as Il Broletto, the city hall building. But the most beautiful of the squares in Brescia is the neighbouring one, Piazza de la Loggia. Its origins date back to the Renaissance, when, in 1489, work on the Loggia is begun under Filippo Grassi, in the most authentic Venetian style. All the buildings in the square are its visual subordinates, mirroring its arch. On the opposite side, one notices the Torre dell’Orologio, whose colonnade ensures the transition towards Piazza Paolo VI. The astronomical clock in the tower dates from 1546. Piazza della Loggia holds three of the four “talking statues” of Brescia, where the inhabitants voice their grievances about the way in which the city was governed by leaving notes on these statues.

Piazza Gabriotti and Piazza Matteotti from Città di Castello, Italy

Città di Castello is found in an ancient Umbrian settlement, on the fertile banks of the Tiber. The town, maintaining a large part of the buildings raised during its period of flourishing, is unusual in that it has two central squares. Equally important throughout its entire history, Piazza Gabriotti and Piazza Matteotti, once called Piazza delle Donne and Piazza Vitelli, were known by the locals as Upper Square and Lower Square. The cathedral, found in Lower Square, has a cylindrical campanile and bears the name of a local bishop, San Florido, who was sanctified and seen as a protector of the town. In the 6th century, San Florido supported the rebuilding of the settlement after the destruction by the Ostrogoths. The City Hall building dates from the 14th century and is the work of Angelo da Orvieto, who built the Palazzo del Podestà in the neighbouring square. The Torre civica is the symbol of communal power.

Plaza del Mercado Chico from Ávila, Spain

It seems the Roman forum once stood on the site of Plaza del Mercado, which became the centre of the community at the end of the 11th century when the region was repopulated. In the Middle Ages, it used to be a plaza porticada, a square bordered by columns, with a weekly fair, as well as corridas and religious ceremonies. The square was the site of royal receptions but also beheadings. In the 15th century, in front of the San Juan church, in the presence of Torquemada, converted Jews were burnt at the stake. Plaza del Mercado Chico is an interesting case representing the fight between secular and religious power. The existence of the San Juan church on the southern side of the square resulted in the church claiming half of it. In the end, the city council voted for building a regular square in 1770. The construction was slow going, only finalised in 1870, with a line of columns masking San Juan, and transforming Plaza del Mercado Chico into a City Hall square.

Námestie Majstra Pavla from Levoča, Slovakia

Levoča, called Leutschau in German and Lőcse in Hungarian, was the capital of the historical region of Spiš and features one of the largest squares in Central Europe. It is almost unchanged, with only one or two modern intrusions, bounded by 50 old houses, a few of them with painted façades. At the centre of the rectangular square, which reproduces on a smaller scale the proportions and shape of the still walled burg, one finds the church of Saint Jacob, with the highest wooden carved altar in the world. Made in the late Gothic style, this is the work of a talented and mysterious craftsman named Paul, of whom almost all information was lost during the fire which destroyed the town’s archives in 1550. But the square nonetheless bears his name today. The Majstra Pavla Square also holds the building of the City Hall and its arches, remade after the fire in 1550, one of the best examples of Renaissance lay architecture in Slovakia. Aside from this one finds the 16th century cage of shame, where the guilty were locked up in order to be displayed before the community.

Plaza Mayor from Plasencia, Spain

This historic town has Plaza Mayor as its nucleus, for all the streets begin here, leading to the gates out of the citadel, whose walls are still reasonably well-kept even today. The City Hall building, dating from the 16th century, is known for El abuelo Mayorga, a funny human figurine who, every half hour, strikes the building’s bell with its hammer. This figure has become the symbol of the town, with many real and imagined tales linked to it. Of different heights, built in different epochs and in different styles, the buildings which define the square perimeter make up an imposing whole, with an unexpectedly unitary personality. Plaza Mayor in Plasencia is one of the least known, but still very beautiful squares in Spain.

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Piața Universității from Bucharest, Romania

This is one of the most important squares in Bucharest, with a shape influenced by Haussmann’s model of grand intersections. At the end of the 15th century, this was located at the edge of the city, but today it often plays the role of Bucharest’s central square, and, in recent history, it has been the scene of many great public demonstrations. This is where the first school of higher studies in Wallachia originally stood, the Saint Sava Academy, upon which the University of Bucharest was later built in the mid-19th century. The square holds four statues of important figures of Romanian history and there are plans for remaking one other statue, which had been destroyed at the beginning of the Communist period.

Plaza Mayor from Segovia, Spain

Segovia’s Plaza Mayor has a special meaning for the history of Spain. In 1474, when it was still called San Miguel Plaza, the Catholic Queen Isabella of Castile was crowned there. Otherwise, it is a typical Spanish square. Nonetheless, in an urbanistic sense, it offers an unexpected yet at the same time visually interesting performance. A massive cathedral building, one of the latest Gothic cathedrals in Europe, is found on one of the square’s sides. But Plaza Mayor manages not to let itself dominated by this cathedral. Seen from the square, the cathedral does not appear so monumental, and the square maintains an intimate air, relatable to human height.

Velké náměstí from Kroměříž, Czech Republic

Kroměříž is first mentioned in 1110. It has a large square, whose focal point is a baroque-style column raised in the middle in order to mark the end of the plague epidemic in 1680. Next to it there is a fountain, part of the town’s water supply, dating from 1665 yet modified several times. The City Hall building and a long row of Renaissance style houses and Art Nouveau façades border the square; yet the bishop’s palace, with its large, splendid gardens, included on the UNESCO heritage list, is clearly the most impressive of all.

Markt from Naarden, Netherlands

There is nothing spectacular about the Naarden square. It is an irregular, not particularly large space, unfolding around Grote Kerk, a red brick church built in the northern Gothic style of the 15th century, dedicated to St. Vitius before the Protestant Reformation. Nevertheless, this church is among the oldest in the Netherlands, surviving a fire after the Spanish invasion of 1557. In the square, to one side of the church, lies the statue of Comenius, who was born in Naarden. At one corner of the square there is a Renaissance-style city hall, decorated with allegorical human figures. Even if this square is nothing special, as a whole it is spectacular. Markt is the centre of a star-shaped fort, surrounded by a double row of water ditches.

Marktplein de Hof from Amersfoort, Netherlands

This city maintains the traces of successive borders. The walls surrounding the centre were torn down in the 15th century, but their original positions can still be seen, marked by the “muurhuizen”, the clay wall-houses. Linear suburbs have grown outside the old city, along the main roads. In time, the spaces between these and the city were filled up, and the city itself expanded even further, beyond the highway. At the centre stands the square, Marktplein de Hof.

Trg Republike Hrvatske from Šibenik, Croatia

Šibenik is no exception among the towns on the Dalmatian coast. It did not originate as a Greek colony, nor was it founded by Illyrians or Romans, but by the first Croats to settle here. Yet its later history is not very different from that of other coastal towns, impacted by the arrival of the Ottomans, the Venetians, the Kings of Hungary and the Habsburgs. But the Slavs always remain the dominant element in the citadel. For a time, the Istro-Romanian community was numerous here.

The square has distinct nuances and is considered the most beautiful in present-day Croatia. It contains two sections, one of which was the church square, whereas the other was the centre of secular power and, although close to the shore, it was never a port.  The important landmarks of the square are the Renaissance-style palace, and especially the Church of St. Jacob, which is part of the UNESCO list.

Trg Luža and Gundulićeva poljana from Dubrovnik, Croatia

Trg Luža, the large square in Dubrovnik, lies at the end of the largest artery crossing the citadel from west to east, called Stradun or Placa. Each extremity represents a point of entry into the citadel, marked by a gate and a square. This structure, clearly visible in an aerial photograph, is linked to the way the city was once built. Ten centuries ago, Stradun’s current path was a canal separating the old Greco-Roman colony Ragusa, which was established on an island, from Dubrva, the settlement of the continental Slavs. In the 11th century, the canal was silted and the two communities became one, although their rivalry and mutual contempt would never disappear. A century later, they were still found within the same walls. In accordance with the classic plan of the process of synoecism, the main square was shaped at the geographical contact point between the two communities. Thus, Trg Luža was born and this was also the place where the most important historical buildings would be: Orlando’s statue, the Palace of the Rector, the Sponza Palace, the Clock Tower, Onufri’s small well. The well’s street unites Luža square with the second most important market, Gundulićeva Poljana, which was built much later, after the earthquake of 1667. Although planned separately, the two squares make up a system.

Piazza del Comune from Assisi, Italy

Assisi,famous due to Saint Francis, is, through its positioning, yet another exception to the rule of Etruscan settlements. It lies not on a hill, but on a steep side of Mount Subasio. It also holds its own “secrets”. For one, its shape, irregular like any medieval square, represents the shape of the town in miniature. A coincidence, yet a profoundly symbolic one in the town of Saint Francis. Then, it has a special continuity, for it stands on the site of a Roman cistern. The temple of Minerva also dates from the Roman period, converted into a church in 1539 and admired for its proportions by architects and by Goethe as well. Although not planned this way, the buildings are all nearly the same height, which creates the sensation of unity. There is a single exception, the medieval tower next to the temple of Minerva, which makes the square visible from any corner of the town.