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The Piazza in Italian Urban Morphology Author(s): Richard Fusch Source: Geographical Review, Vol. 84, No. 4 (Oct., 1994), pp. 424-438 Published by: American Geographical Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/215757 . Accessed: 23/02/2014 13:52

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THE PIAZZA IN ITALIAN URBAN MORPHOLOGY

RICHARD FUSCH

ABSTRACT. The piazza has been an integral part of Italian cities since medieval times. Though still used as public open space and market, the piazza in the late twentieth century performs a complex set of functions. A typology of piazzas elucidates this complexity and explains the role of the piazza relative to public transportation and increased automobile use in Italian cities.

THE piazza is a basic component of the Italian urban fabric. It is an open exterior space that functions integratively in the city. Connected by streets to other piazzas and other sectors of the city, piazzas create a

sense of place and perspective, fitting together like polychromatic pieces of a puzzle to create a total character unique to any specific city section and to the city as a whole (Fig. 1). Although many individual piazzas are closely linked to other nearby piazzas, most piazzas have a primary function. In areas beyond the oldest sections of the cities some piazzas are polyfunctional and resemble small cities unto themselves, as in a small village, where a central piazza serves as a retail, commercial, and governmental node, a center of religious and social activities, and a parking lot (Akinori 1980, 5-7; Webb 1991, 35-65).

Most research on Italian piazzas has focused on the design and devel- opment of historically significant ones and on the often monumental archi- tecture associated with them (Trachtenberg 1988; Benevolo 1991). The focus here is functional: the role of the piazza in the morphology of modern Italian cities. I examine a wide range of piazza types, uses, and functions, and I trace the origins and diffusion of the piazza through the Italian city system from Roman times to the present. Specific emphasis is on the medieval period, 1100-1400, because it is crucial to understanding current piazza location, form, and function. Present-day patterns are summarized in a sixfold ty- pology of piazzas that integrates interactions among location, form, function, and causative process. Data for the study came from a variety of sources: published works; fieldwork in numerous Italian cities, especially Florence between 1991 and 1993; and cartographic resources in the archives of Flor- ence, whose holdings date to A.D. 900.

A piazza is an opening in the city fabric that allows public access and activity in various forms-walking, riding, driving, shopping, socializing, and playing. The space may be designed or undesigned; it may be only an opening into which street traffic is funneled; it may or may not have land- scaped interior spaces for public interaction set apart from the surrounding edges. Essential to this definition and to the analysis in this article are that

* DR. FUSCH is a professor of geography at Ohio Wesleyan University, Delaware, Ohio 43015.

Copyright ?O 1994 by the American Geographical Society of Neu, York

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ITALIAN PIAZZAS 425

FIG. 1 -Piazza del Popolo, Orvieto. The irregularly shaped piazza borders the Palazzo del Popolo, which has housed city-council offices since the late twelfth century. The piazza is a market on Thursdays and Saturdays. (Photograph by author)

this space must have a formal name and that it must be recognized as a piazza in public documents such as maps, guidebooks, and civic records. It must be a "conceptual anchor point" in the urban center (Lynch 1960, 102).

HiSTORY OF THE PIAZZA

The notion of the centrally designed space as ritual center, public meeting ground, marketplace, or political center has diffused widely through Western urban morphology since the origin of cities in western Asia (Zucker 1959). The immediate antecedent of present-day Italian piazzas is the Roman forum. The exact origins of forums in Roman cities are unknown, but they probably derived their conceptual and design criteria from at least two sources: the Greek agora, and the small quadrangular centers with crossing streets in the Etruscan settlements of northern and central Italy (Sitte 1945, 1-9; Zucker 1959, 46-50; MacKendrick 1983, 28-112; Stambaugh 1988, 243-254).

The forums in the hundreds of urban centers planned and designed by the Romans in Italy and their empire were rectangular public squares set at the center of two main cross streets, the north-south cardo and the east-west decumanus. The forum and the two crossing streets served as the anchors for the development of the Roman grid-pattern town. At the height of the empire the forum of a Roman city served as a symbolic and geographical center and

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426 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

was a highly functional space for the practice of religion, politics, education, commerce, and recreation (Zucker 1959, 45-62; Stambaugh 1988, 243-286).

In Italy after the fifth century A.D. the decline and disintegration of the empire brought about the retrenchment of the Roman city system and the disintegration of the rationally ordered towns. What was left was freed from the geometric order imposed by Rome, and as time passed public open space was associated with the powers that dominated city life, principally the Christian church (Vance 1990, 80-109; Kostof 1991, 48-51). As a result the church greatly influenced the morphology of the early medieval city.

During Roman times Christian churches were never at the town center or near the forum; instead, they were often on the city edges or at sites unwanted or unused by other, more powerful forces. In Florence, for ex- ample, the present-day Piazza del Duomo, which is the site of the Baptistry, a Byzantine-style church built in the sixth or seventh century A.D., and the present-day Duomo, begun in 1294, was at the edge of the Roman city, close to its wall (Borsook 1988, 56-62; Macadam 1988, 60-69). Furthermore, the first cathedral in Florence, consecrated in 393, was on the present site of the Church of San Lorenzo, which is outside the original Roman wall (Borsook 1988, 67; Macadam 1988, 131). In the ninth century the bishop's seat was transferred from the San Lorenzo site to Santa Reparata, a church on the site of the Duomo.

Thus the rigid Roman grid and rectangular blocks were gradually overrun as paths and streets reoriented from pagan forums and temples to the churches. Market functions, merchants, artisans, and nobility located or relocated near and around the increasingly nodal churches. The most significant open space was in front of the church for use as a market, for public gatherings, and, most importantly, for religious ceremonies.

Beginning early in the tenth century with the gradual shift of residences from the countryside to towns, nobles continued to fortify their dwellings, towers, and compounds, often with limited access. They obstructed streets, which further altered the shape and character of the Roman grid (Kostof 1991,48-51; Waley 1988, 1-64, 117-131). The nobles also entered into alliances, and gradually various groups came to dominate sections of cities, which led to "cities of factions" (Vance 1990, 133-135). The urban quarters that emerged paid little heed to the remaining Roman grid, and the street pattern was realigned to accommodate fortified gates and compound walls-to express defensive ideology or inherent political power. The orthogonal patterns of the Roman city virtually disappeared.

Between 600 and 1100, open spaces fronting churches or serving as land- ings for noble-family towers became the piazzas around which public life was conducted. Italian cities contain many piazzas of this origin. For example, the Piazza della Cisterna in the center of San Gimingano, which is the focus of its tourist trade, developed around a well between several large noble

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ITALIAN PIAZZAS 427

FIG. 2-Piazza della Cisterna, San Gimingano. The buildings around the piazza date to the twelfth century; at least two are former towers. The well was the center of an urban quarter surrounded by tower fortifications. The piazza is now the focus of the tourist trade in San Gimingano. (Pho- tograph by author)

towers (Fig. 2). In the eleventh century it was the public center of an urban quarter (Waley 1988, 118-130; Webb 1991, 39).

By the eleventh century, as towns in northern Italy grew and prospered, a new class of citizenry emerged-the merchants who gained power and wealth alongside the nobility and the church. The increased wealth of the merchants and the emergence of the guild system, dominated by the mer- chant guilds, led to significant changes in political organization that cul- minated in the formation of the Italian city-state, a semiautonomous urban form beholden only partially to the nobility and the church. By the thirteenth century the governments of those states in association with wealthy mer- chant-artisan guilds began to inject funds into the construction of massive churches, public works, designed spaces, and the magnificent art and ar- chitecture that preceded and continued into the Renaissance (Mumford 1961, 252-277; Benevolo 1980, 287-331; Benevolo 1991, 17-33; Girouard 1985, 15- 41; Goldthwaite 1993).

That period witnessed the establishment of the piazza as an integral part of Italian urban design. After 1 100 the self-governing city-states restricted the power of the nobility and slowly reclaimed the streets and public places for the entire citizenry (Kostof 1991, 50). Venice, Florence, Padua, Verona,

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428 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

Pisa, Siena, Bologna, and Urbino constructed large cathedrals and churches, law courts, and city-council offices that were fronted by or juxtaposed to piazzas large enough to accommodate the citizenry in religious and public ceremonies. Concurrently, forceful removal of intracity walls and towers of the nobility led to the first height-limitation and skyline-control regulations in the urban West (Frugoni 1991, 82-117; Webb 1991, 32-65).

Although the street pattern of the preceding six centuries generally re- mained, the cities were gradually opened. Small and large public open spaces were created or restored, and new streets were laid out (Friedman 1988, 201- 223). In some cases parts of the original Roman plan were rehabilitated. For example, in Florence the Mercato Vecchio, now the Piazza della Repubblica, had been the forum in Roman times; during the twelfth century it became the principal market for the city. However, in other instances open spaces were often irregular and reflected the medieval plan that had emerged after removal of walls, towers, or other buildings by order of the city councils. By that process the irregularly shaped Piazza del Campo in Siena, the Piazza del Popolo in Todi, and the Piazza di Santa Maria Novella in Florence were created (Fanelli 1987a, 27).

Other piazzas were systematically planned. Among them is the Piazza della Signoria in Gubbio, built directly into a hillside, supported on the downslope side by arched vaults, and flanked on each side by the city hall and the Palazzo Pretoria, which is now a courthouse. Some piazzas planned as squares ended with less regular, though often geometric, form, when powerful landowners refused to surrender their property or other forces held sway. The Piazza della Signoria, which fronts the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, illustrates this aspect of the process (Rubenstein 1978, 19-30; Trachtenberg 1988, 25-26).

More important were the dozens of small piazzas that resulted from the general opening of the city to the public. A walk through the medieval sections of almost any medium-sized Italian city north of Rome reveals this pattern. In Florence, for example, those sections of the city developed prior to 1400 contain more than a dozen of these piazzas on sites of now-demolished towers, parts of compound walls, or houses. Many of these piazzas are now unoccupied, except perhaps by a parked motorcycle or an occasional passerby who rests for a moment or two on the steps of a closed shop or the stoop of an apartment building. A few might serve as open spaces fronting small businesses, trattorias, or hotels.

Concurrent with the reordering of early medieval urban design was the founding of new towns by the many city-states in the thirteenth and four- teenth centuries. Those new towns were to serve as buffers from attack and to aid in the geopolitical control and organization of the countryside. The city-states adopted not only a Roman practice to control territory but also Roman designs in planning the new towns (Friedman 1988). Invariably, the plan of the new town was orthogonal, with two wide right-angled cross

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ITALIAN PIAZZAS 429

streets intersecting at a large central piazza. The piazza housed both the main church and the city hall, as well as other civic or regional administrative offices. During the thirteenth century the central piazza of those new towns also contained the main public market, but by the early fourteenth century the Florentine government, for example, began reserving the main piazza for ceremony and public assembly. Consequently, piazzas were increasingly treated as monumental spaces, and markets were shifted elsewhere, often outside the town walls (Friedman 1988, 51-116). Basically, Florence and other city-states were re-creating the Roman grid town, with its central square, a pattern to be repeated by the Spanish three centuries later in the New World (Stanislawski 1947; Friedman 1988, 8).

By 1400 the creation of new towns, the realignment of the medieval street plan, and the construction of large-scale public works led to the formation of four broad categories of piazzas: large piazzas fronting monumental churches or public buildings, large piazzas in front of or irregularly juxta- posed with significant governmental buildings, piazzas as open market squares, and a multitude of various-sized, often irregularly shaped piazzas created when buildings, especially the towers of nobles, were removed (ASF 1427, 1594, 1595, 1783, 1850, 1860). Those morphological changes all resulted from emerging socioeconomic and political trends: the rising importance of mercantilism, the significance of public ceremony and processions, the im- portance of public religiosity, the significance of public discourse in the affairs of state, and the choice of exterior space to display the power of the church in religious structures and the power of the people in civic buildings. The grandiose piazza and its associated monumental structures also reflected the emerging symbolism of the city as the epitome and ideal form of civilized life (Borsi 1975, 11-20; Smith 1992, 49-51, 98-129).

By the end of the Middle Ages the piazza had become crucial to the long- term morphology of Italian cities and an important element in defining what a city was and should be. By the mid-fifteenth century the architectural theorist Leon Battista Alberti proclaimed piazzas basic to city life (Rosenau 1959, 45). In 1419 Filippo Brunelleschi designed and began the construction of the Ospedale degli Innocenti and the Piazza Santissima Annunziata that fronts both the Ospedale and the Church of Santissima Annunziata. The Ospedale may have initiated the Renaissance in architecture, and the piazza, like the building, clearly refers back to its Roman ancestors (Morris 1979, 121, 138). Though not the first rectilinear piazza created in Florence after 1100, it was probably the first to be designed in the context of surrounding structures (Benevolo 1991, 58-60).

Following the lead of Brunelleschi, other artist-architects throughout Italy and elsewhere adopted the architectural innovations of Renaissance Florence (Morris 1979, 121). Thus piazzas generally became designed spaces in Italian cities. From the Renaissance into the nineteenth century, piazzas were de- signed, enlarged, or modified according to centralized plans developed by

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430 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

artist-architects under the patronage of a noble, the church, or a government (Fanelli 1987a, 1987b; Commune di Firenze 1991). By the end of the Renais- sance the necessity of public open space in urban design was no longer debated: it was ingrained in Italian society (ASF 1783, 1850, 1860; Boffito and Mori 1973). The piazza continues as an integral morphological unit of Italian cities.

PIAZZA TYPOLOGY

Several factors have contributed to the differing functional characteristics of piazzas in modern Italian cities. Foremost is the location of a piazza relative

TABLE I-TYPOLOGY OF ITALIAN PIAZZAS

TYPE CHARACTERISTICS EXAMPLES

Relic Located in historic urban cores; pre- La Cisterna (San Gimingano); di 1400 in origin; little used for Danti (Florence); dei Cimatori public gatherings (Florence)

Monumental Located in historic urban cores; pre- San Pietro (Rome); Santa Croce 1500 in origin; front monumen- (Florence); del Campo (Siena); tal churches, public buildings, del Duomo (Milan); del Popolo and palaces (Orvieto); Maggiore (Bologna)

Neighborhood market Found throughout Italian cities; Nobili, Tanucci, Giorgini (Florence) markets for fresh fruit and vege- tables; enterprises include bars, restaurants, and gasoline stations

Mercantile Regional shopping center; numer- Dalmazia and della Cure (Florence) ous shops; crowded with people and vehicles

Neighborhood park Small, orthogonal, landscaped; post- D'Azeglio (Florence) 1600; contain seating, fountains, statuary, and play areas for chil- dren

Vehicular Sometimes former monumental or Del Terzolle, Liberta (Florence) market piazzas; sometimes wid- ened portions of main intersec- tions

Sources: Lelli and Pampaloni 1987; Touring Club Italiano 1993; fieldwork 1991 to 1993.

to the age of the surrounding urban fabric. Piazzas in old sections may have differing roles from those in new sections. Location of a piazza relative to others nearby, to residential developments, or to main streets also affects present-day function. A second and related factor is the history of a piazza. In the old sections of a city, historical precedent has a great influence on present-day piazza functions. A third factor is the modern vehicular trans- portation system. Many piazzas in both the old and new sections lie astride bus routes and serve as convenient commuter-transfer points, which greatly affect piazza functions. Finally, increasing ownership and use of automobiles in Italian cities influence both piazza function and design. These factors interact to create six types of piazzas in modern Italian cities: relic, monu- mental, neighborhood market, mercantile, neighborhood park, and vehicular (Table I).

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ITALIAN PIAZZAS 431

FIG. 3-Piazza dei Cimatori, Florence. This small piazza is on the site of a former building in the oldest part of Florence. The piazza contains a newspaper kiosk, provides alfresco seating for a small trattoria, and serves as a parking lot for motorbikes. (Photograph by author)

RELIC PIAZZAS

Relic piazzas are both fewest in number and smallest in size; they are also probably the oldest type. In Florence all relic piazzas are found in II Centro, the area inside the last set of medieval walls. In the medieval and Renaissance sections of Florence most piazzas are subtractive in origin, cre- ated by the removal of part of the urban fabric-razing or demolition of various structures-that resulted from the opening of the crowded medieval areas by the city-state. These sections of Florence are replete with tiny, often irregularly shaped piazzas that front small neighborhood medieval churches or once-famous residences (Fig. 3). For example, the Piazza di Dante fronts the house in which Dante Alighieri was born.

Relic piazzas are seldom crowded with pedestrians and are little used as social gathering places. They are places to pass through; however, they are

significant, because they reflect the morphology of the medieval city and are named after prominent historical figures or for important events. Most im- portantly, these small piazzas among the houses of the former nobility or in front of a neighborhood church were the open spaces in which much of the public life of medieval cities was displayed. They thus are the structural and functional precedents for the other piazzas in Florence and most other Italian cities.

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432 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

FIG. 4-Piazza Santa Croce, Florence. In the background is the twelfth-century Church of Santa Croce. The piazza is rectangular. Retail establishments, primarily for tourists, occupy the ground floor of the residential buildings on the left. The scene is typical of most monumental piazzas. (Photograph by author)

MONUMENTAL PIAZZAS

A monumental piazza is usually large and often orthogonal; it sits astride a historically significant site or fronts historically significant buildings. This type of piazza is writ large on the geography and history of Florence: these piazzas and their associated buildings symbolize Florence to residents and visitors alike. They are in II Centro (Fig. 4).

Quite often the piazzas are as important as the buildings that abut them,, and they serve as principal nodes and geographical reference points for all urban residents. They are nodes for vehicles and people moving through the old city. Major festivals are held in these piazzas, and in salubrious weather, especially at the height of the tourist season, they are packed with people day and night. In medieval times this type of piazza was abutted by monumental buildings and was renowned as a place of preaching, public oratory, processions, and public executions. Such piazzas have not completely lost their historical functions. The Piazza del Duomo is still the religious heart of Florence; the Piazza della Signoria with the Palazzo Vecchio is its political heart, because the city council has met there since the thirteenth century; piazzas Santa Croce and Santa Maria Novella attract large crowds of residents and nonresidents alike. In terms of symbolism and of defining

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ITALIAN PIAZZAS 433

FIG. 5Piazza Nobili, Florence. Retail establishments fill most of the ground floors of the buildings facing the piazza. Its interior is used for parking automobiles which is typical of many neighborhood-market piazzas. (Photograph by author)

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FIG. 6-Piazza Dalmazia, Florence. The center is fenced to curtail public access. Retailing includes large department stores. Five major urban arterials traverse the piazza, and eight bus routes have stops here. (Photograph by author)

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434 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

FIG. 7-Piazza Massimo d'Azeglio, Florence. Typical of neighborhood-park piazzas are the land- scaping, benches, and playground equipment. This piazza sits among residential housing, distant from major thoroughfares. French influence is apparent in the design. (Photograph by author)

Florence as a place, monumental piazzas are the most important sites in the city (Lynch 1960, 92-93, 102).

NEIGHBORHOOD-MARKET PIAZZAS

The neighborhood-market piazza is a local retail-shopping area and some- times serves as a socializing center. Perhaps in overall public use this type of piazza is the most important of the six types. Examples are found through- out Florence, and the number of functions varies from as few as eight to as many as thirty-nine. In any residential area there may be several piazzas of this type, each with slightly different retail functions, which suggests that the piazzas are interrelated functionally with specific residential areas. The prototype varies in size, is sometimes orthogonal and sometimes irregular in shape, but is always surrounded by retail and commercial functions serv- ing a neighborhood or residential area (Fig. 5). The functional complexity of neighborhood-market piazzas appears to be directly related to size of the area served, access to main transit routes, and proximity to a mercantile piazza.

MERCANTILE PIAZZAS

A mercantile piazza is the Italian equivalent of the American regional shopping mall, although design and functional organization differ. Few ex-

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ITALIAN PIAZZAS 435

amples of this type of piazza are found in Italian cities. Only two were identified in Florence, Piazza Dalmazia (Fig. 6) and Piazza delle Cure, each at an intersection of several major urban arterials, served by a number of bus lines, and with some form of designed and landscaped area at its center or along its edge. When the businesses close, these piazzas are usually de- serted. Their chief function then is to serve as parking lots or to funnel automobile and bus traffic.

NEIGHBORHOOD-PARK PIAZZAS

The piazza as neighborhood park is a somewhat problematic type. The residential function in Italian cities is generally integrated with other urban elements. Few areas of Italian cities are exclusively residential; even areas that at first glance appear almost completely residential on further inspection contain nonresidential uses intermingled among the residential buildings. Furthermore, seldom is the residential function absent from any piazza type. Hence almost all piazzas serve in some way as neighborhood parks. However, there are four reasons why I designate it a specific type. Many piazzas are found in residential areas that are relatively isolated from main streets; instead, these piazzas are situated at the convergence of minor streets in primary residential areas and receive little through automobile traffic. Second, they usually are orthogonally designed open spaces with centers that are landscaped with dense stands of trees, shrubbery, and flowering plants that provide shade and shield the center from the street (Fig. 7). Third, the edges of these piazzas lack the retail and commercial functions characteristic of the other piazza types; the primary function is neighborly socializing. Finally, this type of piazza is designed space that was created after 1650 and almost to a fault copies the French grand-manner design for parks, boulevards, and other open spaces.

VEHICULAR PIAZZAS

The primary purpose of the vehicular piazza is to direct automobile and bus traffic to other parts of the city or to serve as a parking lot. Vehicular piazzas seldom have designed or landscaped open space as part of their configuration; they seldom are orthogonal; they seldom have much pedes- trian traffic. Many of this type are nothing more than widened sections of main intersections (Fig. 8). They are not conducive to pedestrian traffic and can be downright intimidating to walkers. Some are nothing more than parking lots. Although vehicular piazzas lack the aesthetics of the other types and can be a forbidding place to the pedestrian, their importance in the evolving urban fabric of Italian cities should not be underestimated. As automobile use increases in urban areas, these piazzas may foretell the mor- phological future, especially on the edges of urban expansion. Furthermore, in the last twenty years piazzas in old sections of cities have been transformed from monumental or neighborhood-market piazzas into vehicular piazzas. This shift may portend the future of other piazzas.

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436 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

FIG. 8-Piazza del Terzolle, Florence. The scene is typical of a vehicular piazza: gasoline stations are visible. (Photograph by author)

CHANGING ROLES OF PIAZZAS

Today the piazza is an integral component of all Italian cities and serves as a major node for social, political, religious, and economic activities. Piazzas are central to urban life and provide sites where much public activity takes place. Piazzas serve as market place, tourist attraction, park, relic, regional shopping center, or traffic director. The primary function of any piazza is intimately related to its place in the modern Italian urban fabric and to its location in terms of other piazzas, residential areas, and community history. Additionally, current function is related to transportation technology and to adaptive reuse to adjacent sites and buildings. The piazza is essential to movement in a city and has become nodal for both intra- and interurban transit. The piazza is an important place for socializing and for the creation of a sense of community.

The transit role may be the most important factor in influencing change in piazza functions. Streets are becoming increasingly choked with vehicular traffic. More and more of the edges in the marketing, mercantile, and neigh- borhood-park piazzas are being allotted to parking spaces, which reduces aesthetic appeal and socialization functions. Italians are notorious for parking almost anywhere for short periods of time. Thus entrances to and centers of many piazzas are crowded with parked and moving vehicles, which decreases the ability to use the areas for socialization or pedestrian traffic.

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ITALIAN PIAZZAS 437

The availability of automobiles means that consumers are no longer as dependent as they once were on pedestrian-accessible establishments and on the centrality of the piazza. To some degree, changing piazza functions reflect broad landuse changes that are under way in all Italian urban areas as retail and commercial functions are gradually spreading along major thoroughfares.

In spite of these trends, the piazza remains the place around which much of the identity of the Italian city adheres. Italian cities have ancient roots, and many piazzas serve as the repository of Italian urban history. The res- idential function, constituted largely of multidwelling units, accounts for more area than other urban landuses and is completely integrated throughout the morphology of Italian cities. Residential densities are consistently high in Italian cities, and piazzas serving residential areas are ubiquitous. It is unlikely that piazzas will soon lose their functional complexity or that they will stop serving the needs of neighborhoods and whole sectors of the city. Finally, because the political, religious, and recreational functions of many Italian cities are tied to important public buildings that tend to be sited on major piazzas, a large number of historically significant piazzas will continue to act as centers and magnets of urban life far into the future.

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