Description
Piazza delle Erbe is the market square in the heart of Padua, below the flank of Palazzo della Ragione: in the morning it is full of fruit and vegetable stalls, in the evening of tables for an aperitivo. Together with neighbouring Piazza della Frutta, it has been the city's commercial centre for centuries and hosts one of the largest markets in Italy.
To the north it is closed by the bulk of Palazzo della Ragione, with its loggias and the great sundial on the south front; below, the shops of the Salone. Its stairs down to the square were called Scala dei Feri and Scala del Vin, after the goods sold at their feet. Next to it juts out the 16th-century Palazzo del Podestà, part of the town hall.
To the west stands Palazzo delle Debite, with the long nine-arched portico designed by Camillo Boito in 1874 on the site of the old prisons. To the south runs a row of tall medieval houses with porticoes of different periods and styles.
In the 20th-century wing of the town hall, a marble map of Padua marks the 912 bombs that fell on the city during the First World War. In the middle of the square, the monumental fountain dates from 1930: beneath it, a manhole cover in the paving still covers the old well.
The square had many names: of Grain and of Wine, for what was sold there, but also of Justice. This is where the execution scaffold was set up, under the Podestà's windows, and from the top of the Torre degli Anziani a statue of Justice with sword and scales looked down on that very spot.
It was also the square of popular festivals. Every year, on St James's Day, the Palio race arrived here after setting off from Voltabarozzo: the first rider won a precious silk banner, the second a goose, the third an owl.
From the loggia of Palazzo della Ragione, until 1864, the Lotto numbers were drawn and shouted to the crowd in the square. The story goes that the nuns of the nearby convent of San Pietro won so much that they had to send a wheelbarrow to collect the money.
To the north it is closed by the bulk of Palazzo della Ragione, with its loggias and the great sundial on the south front; below, the shops of the Salone. Its stairs down to the square were called Scala dei Feri and Scala del Vin, after the goods sold at their feet. Next to it juts out the 16th-century Palazzo del Podestà, part of the town hall.
To the west stands Palazzo delle Debite, with the long nine-arched portico designed by Camillo Boito in 1874 on the site of the old prisons. To the south runs a row of tall medieval houses with porticoes of different periods and styles.
In the 20th-century wing of the town hall, a marble map of Padua marks the 912 bombs that fell on the city during the First World War. In the middle of the square, the monumental fountain dates from 1930: beneath it, a manhole cover in the paving still covers the old well.
The square had many names: of Grain and of Wine, for what was sold there, but also of Justice. This is where the execution scaffold was set up, under the Podestà's windows, and from the top of the Torre degli Anziani a statue of Justice with sword and scales looked down on that very spot.
It was also the square of popular festivals. Every year, on St James's Day, the Palio race arrived here after setting off from Voltabarozzo: the first rider won a precious silk banner, the second a goose, the third an owl.
From the loggia of Palazzo della Ragione, until 1864, the Lotto numbers were drawn and shouted to the crowd in the square. The story goes that the nuns of the nearby convent of San Pietro won so much that they had to send a wheelbarrow to collect the money.