Piazza Maggiore, Bologna

It is Bologna's main square, laid out from around 1200 as a market and civic space, and it is still the city's default gathering place for markets, concerts and public events. It is ringed by the Basilica di San Petronio, Palazzo d'Accursio, Palazzo dei Banchi and Palazzo del Podestà, which together cover most of the city's medieval and Renaissance history in one open space.

Study the unfinished facade of the Basilica di San Petronio, then walk along Cassini’s meridian line inside. Find the stone opposite Salaborsa from which the Neptune Fountain’s thumb illusion works, whisper across the corners of the Voltone del Podestà, look down through Salaborsa’s glass floor at Roman and Etruscan Bologna for free, and go up the Torre dell’Orologio at Palazzo d’Accursio. From mid-June to mid-August the square is also a free open-air cinema.

Yes. It is a public square with no gates and no ticket, so it is open at all times, and so are the Neptune Fountain and the Voltone del Podestà passage. The buildings around it keep their own hours: the Basilica di San Petronio, for example, opens daily from 10:00 to 18:00, last entry 17:50 (checked October 2026). The square is quietest early in the morning, before about nine.

Yes. The square itself, the Neptune Fountain, the Voltone del Podestà passage and the exteriors of every surrounding palace are free and open at all hours. Individual attractions inside the buildings, such as the basilica’s chapel route, the clock tower and the Anatomical Theatre, charge their own admission.

The square measures 115 metres by 60 metres, roughly 6,900 square metres, which makes it one of the largest squares in Italy. Its raised central platform, added in 1934 and paved in white and pink granite, is nicknamed "il crescentone" after a local flatbread it was said to resemble.

Under Palazzo del Podestà, in the Voltone del Podestà, the vaulted passage that links Piazza Maggiore to Piazza Re Enzo. Face one of its four corners and speak quietly, and someone in the diagonally opposite corner will hear you clearly, because the sound follows the curve of the vault. It works best early in the morning or late in the evening when the passage is quiet.

Start on Piazza Maggiore with the Basilica di San Petronio and its meridian line, the Neptune Fountain and the glass floor at Salaborsa. Within a short walk are the Due Torri, the Quadrilatero market streets behind Palazzo dei Banchi, the wood-panelled Anatomical Theatre in the Archiginnasio, designed in 1637, and Niccolò dell’Arca’s terracotta Compianto in Santa Maria della Vita on Via Clavature.

Work on the marble facade began in 1538 and stopped before it was done, leaving bare brick above the finished lower section. A popular legend blames Pope Pius IV for having the Archiginnasio built against the basilica in 1562 to stop it growing bigger than St Peter’s in Rome, but recent research argues the real reasons were money and planning problems.

Tortellini in brodo, tagliatelle al ragù and mortadella are the three dishes that define Bolognese cooking. All of them are on sale a few minutes’ walk away in the Quadrilatero market streets (Via Pescherie Vecchie, Via Drapperie and Via Clavature), which sit directly behind Palazzo dei Banchi on the square’s east side.