Piazza del Comune

Piazza del Comune is Assisi's civic centre, standing over the site of the Roman forum. The so-called Temple of Minerva, now a church, faces the square alongside the Palazzo dei Priori, Palazzo del Capitano del Popolo and Torre del Popolo. Together they show how the city's Roman, medieval and modern histories meet in one place.

Why it matters

The square occupies the site of the forum of Roman Asisium. Six Corinthian columns of the so-called Temple of Minerva still mark the ancient street front; across the piazza, the commune raised the Palazzo dei Priori, Palazzo del Capitano del Popolo and Torre del Popolo as institutions of civic government. The Roman forum lies beneath the present square, while its surrounding buildings preserve successive layers of the city's history.

What to notice

The so-called Temple of Minerva dates to the second half of the first century BC. Its six fluted columns with Corinthian capitals preserve the ancient facade. The cell behind them later served civic purposes and, in 1228, its vestibule was used as the arengo, or people's assembly. In 1539 the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva was built into the cell and given a Baroque finish in the seventeenth century. Opposite and beside the temple are the town hall, begun in 1275, and the Palazzo del Capitano del Popolo, completed in 1282 with its tower. Below the square, the Roman forum preserves paving, a cistern and rows of shops.

Context and history

The forum occupied the valley floor of Roman Asisium. After antiquity, churches and civic buildings gradually reshaped the square: the church of San Nicolò and its crypt covered part of the forum, the temple's cell served civic uses, and commerce moved beneath arcades. The commune's building campaigns in the late thirteenth century gave the square much of its present frame. Excavations from the nineteenth century onwards exposed parts of the ancient level, preserving an archaeological layer beneath the medieval and modern square.