Description
Piazza della Sala is Pistoia's market square, a stone's throw from Piazza del Duomo: fruit and vegetable stalls, shops all around and, in the middle, a marble well with a little lion on top.
The name is very old. In Lombard times this was the site of the palace of the gastald, the official who governed on the king's behalf, and in the Lombard language "sala" meant precisely a palace. Nothing is left of the building, but the square kept the name.
The star of the show is the Pozzo del Leoncino: a round marble parapet, two columns and a lintel striped in white and green with coats of arms. On top sits the Marzocco, the lion of Florence, with its paw on Pistoia's chequered coat of arms.
It's also worth wandering the streets around it, which still carry the names of old trades: Via del Cacio (cheese), Via dei Fabbri (smiths), Via degli Orafi (goldsmiths). Via del Lastrone recalls the great stone slab on which fish was sold, under a loggia that has since disappeared.
The market has always had strict rules. In 1451 slaughtering animals in the open was banned and butcher's shops were built nearby; until then the well was also used to dump meat scraps. The following year the square was paved.
The little lion arrived in 1529, to remind everyone that Pistoia was now firmly under Florentine rule. The well has carried its name ever since.
The twentieth century was less kind. The masonry stalls built in the 1930s were damaged by wartime bombing, and in 1954 a covered market in reinforced concrete sprang up in the middle of the square, which the people of Pistoia called "il gabbione", the big cage.
The gabbione stirred up plenty of controversy. In 1989 it was torn down, the well returned to its place and the square went back to what it has always done best: selling vegetables among the palazzi of the old town.
The name is very old. In Lombard times this was the site of the palace of the gastald, the official who governed on the king's behalf, and in the Lombard language "sala" meant precisely a palace. Nothing is left of the building, but the square kept the name.
The star of the show is the Pozzo del Leoncino: a round marble parapet, two columns and a lintel striped in white and green with coats of arms. On top sits the Marzocco, the lion of Florence, with its paw on Pistoia's chequered coat of arms.
It's also worth wandering the streets around it, which still carry the names of old trades: Via del Cacio (cheese), Via dei Fabbri (smiths), Via degli Orafi (goldsmiths). Via del Lastrone recalls the great stone slab on which fish was sold, under a loggia that has since disappeared.
The market has always had strict rules. In 1451 slaughtering animals in the open was banned and butcher's shops were built nearby; until then the well was also used to dump meat scraps. The following year the square was paved.
The little lion arrived in 1529, to remind everyone that Pistoia was now firmly under Florentine rule. The well has carried its name ever since.
The twentieth century was less kind. The masonry stalls built in the 1930s were damaged by wartime bombing, and in 1954 a covered market in reinforced concrete sprang up in the middle of the square, which the people of Pistoia called "il gabbione", the big cage.
The gabbione stirred up plenty of controversy. In 1989 it was torn down, the well returned to its place and the square went back to what it has always done best: selling vegetables among the palazzi of the old town.