The piazza has existed as we know it today since the completion of the Basilica de San Pedronio in 1658.
Piazza Maggiore is understood to be created in 1200 to consolidate regional power in the hands of a florentine jurist who brokered statesmanship between City States, the Vatican and crowned kings of Europe.
Bologna with its ancient city Felsina was already celebrated for 1,600 years as a metropolis that had emerged from supplying the luxuries of antiquity.
Accurio was student and protege of the acclaimed Azo de Bologna. Azo wrote an overnight sucess and reference in the making of thrones in French, Italian, English and wherever of course Latin Rules of Law prevailed. Accurio who incorporated Azo's teachings further to matters of statesmanship in his own world followed edition. had been long picked to serve as administrator through the intricate politics of the burgeoning thirteenth century between the Guelph and the Guillherbines of Bologna, and behind them a policy of enlightment. Monastic legacy cocooned through feudal ages in thriving villa rustica's had taken seed in the Bologna's Studio, the first University, of whom Azo and his student Accurio were the world acclaimed stars. The decline of the Roman Empire was barely perceptible through Pax Romana and a succession of Empires, Emperors and Popes. War was ever more so an instrument of politics and fundamentally necessary to Peace. The Bishop of Milan himself had laid out with four crosses the location of the four walls and the four doors in 392. Rings of walls expanded through Medieval times. A second ring had been completed and one under construction. The City went on to be a point of destination for scholars with its first university.
Bologna was well defended, with its back to the mountain. Bologna was the point of attack from the other side of the Alps throughout the entire history of history.
The architecture in Bologna uses a number of symbols. Parabolic upper windows of Palazzo di Notai. Arcade of Palazzo d'Accurio. Doors of Palazza d'Accurio. Smaller and more windows with squarish foursloped roof of mountain towns in the Mediterranean. Stone masonery and timber framing from the Alps.
Palazzo d'Accurio is designed by accretion towards a three-courtyard plan.
At the time of its re-arrangement, the Piazza Maggiore around the Palazzo d'Arcurio would have competed with other places in the daedalus of narrow streets to the university.
This was done from the Accurio's original Palazzo that still bears his name, even though known locally as the comunale - il Palazzo communale: the palace of the people, anywhere else city hall.
Accurio reassembled storehouses and trade counters from their use by the university, Accurio planned a civic square which he left in the hands of history and which governs the town and influences governments and crowns to this day. Still embroils in issues of religion, and long ago made peace with Rome.
In 1200 works began and completed for Palazzo De Podesta which established Piazza Maggiore as we know it today.
The Palazzo del Podestà was built around 1200 as the seat of the local podestà, the various functionaries of the commune. It stands on the Piazza Maggiore, near the Palazzo Communale and facing the Basilica of St. Petronio. Proving insufficient for the massive participation of the people in the city's government, it was in 1245 flanked by the Palazzo Re Enzo, over which stands the Torre dell'Arengo, whose bell was used to call the people during emergencies.
The Palazzo del Podestà is a long building, with a large hall on the upper floor. The lower floor is a double open arcade, the so-called Voltone del Podestà, through which pass two lanes of shops.
The original core of the Palazzo di Notai dates back to 1287.
In 1381 the Palazzo di Notai was built by the city's notaries guild as their seat, under design by Berto Cavalletto and Lorenzo da Bagnomarino.
The old seat of the Notary's guild or association - as inferred by the three ink pots with quills depicted in the coat-of-arm on the façade - went through several building stages.
, but the left side towards S. Petronio was enlarged under the direction of Berto Cavalletto and Lorenzo da Bagnomarino with the contribution by Antonio di Vincenzo in the design of the windows.
The right portion, which is the oldest one, was built anew by Bartolomeo Fioravanti in 1442.
In his 1908restoration, A. Rubbiani drew his inspiration from that outline, when he renovated the two mullioned windows in flamboyant Gothic style, and eliminated an 18th-century raising.
Inside the palace Achille Casanova renovated the pictorial decoration of the lacunar ceiling following documentary sources.
In 1336 Palazzo d'Accurio became the seat of the Anziani ("Elder"), the highest magistrates of the commune, and then seat of the government. In the 15th century it was restored by Fioravante Fioravanti, who added, among the other feature, the Clock Tower (Torre d'Accursio). Other restorations date to the 16th century, just after the fall of the seigniory of the Bentivoglio family in Bologna.The Basilica of San Petronio is dedicated to the patron saint of the city, Saint Petronius, who was the bishop of Bologna in the fifth century. Following a council decree of 1388, the first stone of construction was laid June 7, 1390, when the town council entrusted Antonio di Vincenzo with raising a Gothic cathedral.
Piazza Maggiore is organic and deterministic. The making of public places for use in civic affairs belonged to the education of administrators. They were equally trained to manage community property as a condition that predated the model Romans had already borrowed from the Etruscans in Felsina who championed their right to the abundance they created from the Gaul's claim to these by force by means of necessity.
Felsina would have been shaped between northern Roman villa rustica, latifundiae and as a roman municipium. These would have included infrastructure, piped water and urban amenities starting in the 4th century BC. The area produced in abundance and connected Northern to Southern Europe into the stone ages.
The art of politics had been honed through successive dynasties from the art of war, and it found a way through peace with administration, sciences and commerce.
Accurius could not be expected to plan the history that followed. His education, opportunity and mandate for being at that particular point in place was not left to chance. The existing storehouses and building Accurius had consolidated and repatterned with an abbott's expertise. The storehouses had no need for religious space. It was all business - and strictly as a centre for resources, lodging and document processing. The insignas of power were a door, a Virgin Mary and a porticulis, which added to existing arcade. The tower was added later, omnipresent on the piazza, barely visible at a distance.
The Palazzo di Notai was subsequently developped to expand the clerical function from their administrative counterparts. The subdivision in space between the two is made to create a major and a minor space on their edges. In this case the major edge is oriented to the major access. This could change and did change throughout history, because of the concentric pattern by spiral to the centre of town, still oriented on the via Aemilia.
This square was a functional trade and market spot - on the Via itself. It only needed to be walled later in feudalism. Backed by the Appenine, the place was always prized for its defensive and communication tactical advantage. It was also a fast escape to the sea.
Piazza Maggiore and Bologna share the fundamental relation between a place and its city. Even more of interest, Bologna still shows even today with an incomplete basilica and fundamentally complex urban design founded on archetypical civic space planning. The making of place is intricately that of making urban space. Blocks organize around a core, or anchor off an axis.
The rearrangement of places within this essential first place with the construction of Palazzo de Podesta and further then with the Palazzo Re Enzo attached introduced a multiplicity of edges and urban context between even more private spaces. The new plan reorders building mass on the square to a golden ratio the Basilica then further expands.
The space in front of the Basilica functioned for centuries as a construction zone. It also was a living art space used to model Classical Revival in Europe. Access is open, with a cluster of entrances, loading, parade and display areas. The parvis was most certainly used throughout construction for christian pageants throughout the ages and the seasons.
The piazza was brought into its current design with the fontana de nettuno - homage to the god of the sea from that of the Alps. It may be a subliminal message showing from a Venitian appointing a Frankish as the first step of City States Capitalism to mediate power and peace to Lombard interests.
http://www.ultimateitaly.com/piazzas-italy/piazza-maggiore-bologna.htmlPiazza Maggiore is a square in Bologna, Italy. It was created in 1200.
The Basilica had taken close to three hundred years to complete. The basilica was an object of pride, to complement the Palazzi that defined this public place.
A tower had been added to the Palazzo D'Accursio which had initiated the redevelopment, to be supported by the Palazzo del Podestas and quickly flanked with the Palazzo del Notai.
This business center was at the epicentre of commerce and geo-politics on Rome's Via Aemilia.
Bologna has been a leading city in the world many times in its history, claimed to once be the most populated, had the first university in Europe and reaches into archeology as a gestalt axis of western civilization between the Gauls, Rome.It is famous for its food - and for the most pretigious automobile. And Piazza Maggiore remains the urban symbol to a city at 375,000 in a hinterland of barely one million.
The steeple notwithstanding, this view of Palazzo d'Accursio with the linking to the piazza behind illustrates the urban pattern that is so successful and which would have predated Piazza Maggiore for centuries before in its natural functions for trade, markets and public gatherings around affairs of economics and society.
The site of the piazza had understandably been a public gathering square among agricultural cereal storage and trade structures that kept being upgraded to fulfill increasingly administrative functions.
The function and symbol of a public place had well been known and implemented from antiquity. The agora is for politics and trade. It is an open place with colonades. A fountain may be present. The colonades in the form of columns or arcades is an important indoor to outdoor public to private space.
The site of a Basilica, or chuch is quite different. In addition to the dome or steeples that announce it from afar, it features a front parvis, with a facade and entrances that disply allegorical sculpture.
The tower of Palazzo d'Accursio was added much later, when it was understood the Palazzo to be the comunale, and a place people by now looked for from afar.
The sides of the Palazzo de Podesta serve both entry and edge. The relationship with the inhabitants were not always peaceful.
Today, Piazza Maggiore continues to fulfill its core municipal function and acts as a pivot of history world wide.
The place itself had been a typical site in the alluvial valley of the Po. Fed from the Appenine slopes, this area was shared between Etruscan and Gauls. The original urban center of Felsina had given birth to the Roman villas.
The Po delta was first known in Antiquity as a source of metals and amber.
Trade grew alongside with agriculture and mining. Roman geo politics and governance established the Via Aemilia as an imperial highway for the Po river valley as a resource center for the empire and a pole of power between northern and southern Europe. Bologna maintained these dynamics throughout its history into current times.
The location of the Piazza on the Via Aemilia is ideal. It is exactly half way between sea elevation and the elevation of Milano, and it backs the most effective mountain pass to Rome.
The Appenine provide a mountain range to the SouthWest. From this bench, the alluvial plains and valleys of the Po, with its commandeering City States unfolds.
Bologna had developed fame as the original university town.
Accursius was a famed jurist at the fall of the Frankish control of the Holy Roman Empire under Frederick I. The Palazzo d'Accursio became his residence at a business strategic location in the original university town.
Governance was established with the Palazzo del Podesta which established a precarious balance between governing powers and municipal governance. Feudal society had long since understood the keen relationship between the military and economics through urban society.
The Palazzo del Podesta established this, and the Piazza took on this role with the addition of the Palazzo del Notai. Once this privileged function was understood and established, the town never finished attempting to consolidate and confirm this function of Piazza Maggiore with the construction of the Basilica. To this day, the Piazza Maggiore serves as seat of municipal goverment.
Parmesan cheese, lambrusco wine, balsamic vinegar and spaghetti Bolognese all come from Emilia Romagna, one of Italy's wealthiest regions.Located between Po River to the north and the Apennines to the south, Emilia Romagna is named after a road constructed by the Romans almost 2200 years ago. You
Bologna is in the heart of Emilia Romagna. Medieval palaces cluster around two central squares, Piazza Maggiore, created in 1200, and Piazza del Nettuo. Between them is the majestic Fountain of Neptune.
Sitting in an outdoor café in Piazza Maggiore, one of the finest in Italy, is a true experience. Opposite the fountain is the palace names after King Enzo of Sardinia, who was locked up here for more than 20 years until he died in 1272.
The city is easily explored on foot and you'll be charmed by the beautiful architecture, including the basilicas of San Stefano, San Domenico and San Francesco.
The Plaza Maggiore is dominated by the Basilica of San Petronio, the fifth largest in the world and as fantastic example of Gothic architecture. The façade has a remarkable portal of Old and New Testament scenes and a beautiful Madonna and Child. Inside is the oldest organ in Italy plus a giant sundial and amazing frescos.
The square is surrounded by the Palazzo dei Notai, the Palazzo d'Accursio, the Palazzo del Podestà and the Basilica of San Petronio.
The Palazzo del Podestà is a civic building in Bologna, northern Italy.
The edifice was built around 1200 as the seat of the local podestà, the various functionaries of the commune. It stands on the Piazza Maggiore, near the Palazzo Communale and facing the Basilica of St. Petronio. Proving insufficient for the massive participation of the people in the city's government, it was in 1245 flanked by the Palazzo Re Enzo, over which stands the Torre dell'Arengo, whose bell was used to call the people during emergencies.
The Palazzo del Podestà is a long building, with a large hall on the upper floor. The lower floor is a double open arcade, the so-called Voltone del Podestà, through which pass two lanes of shops.
In 1453 Aristotile Fioravanti replaced the bell and reconstructed the original Gothic façade in the Renaissance style by order of Giovanni II Bentivoglio. In the Voltone, in 1525, were placed the terracotta statues of the city's protectors, Sts. Petronius, Proculus, Dominic and Francis, all by Alfonso Lombardi.
In the 16th-18th centuries the Palazzo was used as theatre. In the 20th century it was frescoed by Adolfo de Carolis.
Podestà is the name given to certain high officials in many Italian cities, since the later Middle Ages, mainly as Chief magistrate of a city state (like otherwise styled counterparts in other cities, e.g. rettori "rectors"), but also as a local administrator, the representative of the (Holy Roman) Emperor.
The term derives from the Latin word potestas, meaning power. This development of a term meaning "Power" or "Authority" to be eventually the title of the person holding such power[1] is parallel to the development of the Islamic term "Sultan".
The first documented usage of podestà was in Bologna in 1151, when it was applied to Guido di Ranieri di Sasso of Canossa, brought in from Faenza to be rettore e podestà, noted in numerous documents.[2] Leander Albertus gives the particulars:
The citizens, seeing that there often arose among them quarrels and altercations, whether from favoritism or friendship, from envy or hatred that one had against another, by which their republic suffered great harm, loss and detriment; therefore, they decided, after much deliberation, toprovide against these disorders. And thus they began to create a man of foreign birth their chief magistrate, giving him every power, authority and jurisdiction over the city, as well over criminal as over civil causes, and in times of war as well as in times of peace, calling him praetor as being above the others, or podestà., as having every authority and power over the city."[3]
Podestàs were first more widely appointed by the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa when he began to assert the rights that his Imperial position gave him over the cities of northern Italy; at the second imperial diet at Roncaglia, November 1158, Frederick appointed in several major cities an imperial podestàs "as if having imperial power in that place"[4]
The elected consuls, which Frederick had claimed the right to ratify, he began to designate directly. The business of the podestà was to enforce imperial rights. From the start, this was very unpopular, and their often arbitrary behaviour was a factor in bringing about the formation of the Lombard League and the uprising against Frederick in 1167.
Although the Emperor's experiment was short-lived, the podestàs soon became important and common in northern Italy, making their appearance in most communes around the year 1200, with an essential difference. These officials were now appointed by the citizens or by the citizens' representatives, rather like the older consuls (but not collegial). The podestàs exercised the supreme power in the city, both in peace and war, and in foreign and domestic matters alike; but their term of office lasted only about a year.[5]
In order to avoid the intense strife so common in Italian civic life, it soon became the custom to hire a stranger to fill this position. A similarity could be drawn to modern CEOs. Venetians were in special demand for this purpose during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. This was probably due to their lesser concern (at the time) than other Italians in the affairs of the mainland.
Afterwards, in a few cases, the term of office was extended to cover a period of years, or even a lifetime. They were confined in a luxury palace to keep them from being influenced by any of the local families.
During the later part of the twelfth and the whole of the thirteenth century most Italian cities were governed by a podestà.
An anonymous writer composed a short guide for the would-be podestà (though it would be unseemly to appear openly to run for the office), Oculus pastoralis, of about 1222;[6] in six simple and brief chapters it guides the novice through the requirements of the office, the salary, the address of welcome given by the retiring podestà to the new one, the choice of counsellors, the handling of money accounts. The fifth chapter offers some model speeches on public occasions, such as the death of prominent citizens. A final chapters touches upon making war (in a paragraph), and the training up of urban officials.
Gradually the podests became more despotic and more corrupt: the sale of public offices at Ferrara was a matter of public record, as Jakob Burckhardt noted: "At the new year 1502 the majority of the officials bought their places at prezzi salati (pungent prices) public servants of the most various kinds, custom-house officers, massari/bailiffs, notaries, podesta, judges, and even governors of provincial towns are quoted by name." Sometimes a special official was appointed to hear complaints against them. In the thirteenth century in Florence, in Orvieto (1251) and some other cities a capitano del popolo (literally, "captain of the people") was chosen to look after the interests of the lower classes. (To this day, the heads of government of the little independent republic of San Marino are still called "Capitani".) In other ways the power of the podests was reduced—they were confined more and more to judicial functions until they disappeared early in the sixteenth century.
Piazza Nettuno and (behind) Piazza Maggiore, Italy.
