01What it is
Piazza Maggiore is the main square of Bologna, and it behaves like a room. Four buildings make its walls: San Petronio to the south, Palazzo d'Accursio, the town hall, to the west, the Palazzo del Podestà to the north, and the long arcaded front of the Palazzo dei Banchi to the east.
The Banchi front is a screen. It was given its regular facade in the sixteenth century to a design by Vignola, and behind it the medieval lanes of the Quadrilatero market run on exactly as before. Walk through one of its arches and you are in a different century.
02The Crescentone
The raised stone platform in the middle of the square is known locally as il Crescentone. Its edge is the city's bench: students, pensioners and visitors sit along it at every hour, which is the single best way to watch Bologna go about its day.
03Under the Podestà: the whispering corner
Beneath the Palazzo del Podestà, where two streets cross under a high vault, stand facing a corner pillar and speak quietly into it. A person standing at the diagonally opposite corner hears you clearly across the noise of the passage. It works, it is free, and there is usually a small queue of people trying it.
Next door, Palazzo Re Enzo is named for Enzo, King of Sardinia and son of the emperor Frederick II, captured by the Bolognese in 1249 and held in the palace until he died there in 1272.
04How to use it
The square is the city's stage, so it is often occupied: in summer a film festival fills it with a screen and rows of seats, and it hosts concerts, rallies and markets through the year.
Note If you want to see the architecture rather than the event, come early in the morning, when the stone is empty and the facade of San Petronio takes the first light.
