Piazza della Libertà

Piazza della Libertà is the civic heart of Macerata. Its arcaded palaces, merchant loggia, town hall and theatre bring together buildings from the medieval period through the eighteenth century around a square that remains a focus of public life.

Why it matters

The square began as the town's political and commercial centre in the Middle Ages and acquired much of its present appearance between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. Its buildings map Macerata's civic institutions: the seat of justice, the loggia used by merchants, the town hall with its clock tower and the opera house.

What to notice

The Loggia dei Mercanti was built between 1503 and 1505 at the initiative of Alessandro Farnese, later Pope Paul III, to a design by Cassiano da Fabriano with Matteo Sabbatini. Its round arches rest on Istrian stone columns. The Torre Civica rises beside the town hall and carries a sixteenth-century astronomical clock with a mechanical procession of the Magi. The town hall has a Renaissance portico, while the Palazzo della Ragione, a thirteenth-century building, has served as a municipal seat and now hosts exhibitions. The Teatro Lauro Rossi completes the group of major civic buildings around the square.

Context and history

The loggia served as a public weighing house for grain, reflecting the square's role in Macerata's trade. It was later walled up and put to other uses, including as a bedroom for an apostolic delegate in the seventeenth century. The Regional Exhibition of 1905 led to restoration of its original arcades. Construction of the Torre Civica began around 1492 and was completed in 1653; the theatre, inaugurated in 1774, completed the square's architectural ensemble.