Antica Pescheria

The Antica Pescheria is Rimini's eighteenth-century fish market, designed by Giovan Francesco Buonamici as a two-tier loggia in 1747. Dolphin fountains, stone selling counters and painted stall numbers preserve details of its original trade.

Why it matters

Commissioned in 1747 from Rimini-born architect Giovan Francesco Buonamici, the loggia opens towards the square through three round arches on two orders. It served the city's fish trade, once a principal source of livelihood. Corner fountains, sloping stone counters and numbered seller spaces reflect the practical demands of that trade.

What to notice

The loggia opens through three round arches. Corner statuettes of dolphins served as fountains for cleaning fish, while two rows of Istrian-stone counters retain their polished hollows and painted stall numbers. The sloping counters and drainage channels reflect the practical demands of the trade. The upper order gives the market a civic presence among the buildings around the square.

Context and history

By the mid-eighteenth century Rimini's fish trade needed a building equal to its importance, and the papal city's answer was Buonamici's loggia of 1747. His design treated a utilitarian commission with the vocabulary of an elegant portico: round arches on the long sides, a double-pitched roof, and clean stone surfaces that could be washed down daily. The market operated across centuries in which seafood anchored the local diet, and the Pescheria became so identified with the city that Riminesi still simply say la Pescheria. After fish trading moved elsewhere, the loggia and the nearby Piazzetta San Gregorio acquired a new civic role.