The Neptune fountain
A great bronze of 1566, now Bologna's emblem.
Gaspa — CC BY 2.0 · Ingo Mehling — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Fred Romero from Paris, France — CC BY 2.0 · Fred Romero from Paris, France — CC BY 2.0
**Bologna's central square, ringed by medieval palaces, with the Neptune fountain at its edge** — the city's public living room. It took shape from the **13th century** and is enclosed by the unfinished-fronted **Basilica of San Petronio**, the **Palazzo del Podestà** with its archway, the **Palazzo d'Accursio** (the town hall), and the arcaded **Palazzo dei Banchi**. ✅ **In the adjoining Piazza del Nettuno stands the Neptune fountain** of 1566 — a **great bronze** of the sea god with his arm raised, **which has become a symbol of Bologna** and is said to have inspired the Maserati badge (the cars are built nearby). ⚠ **The Palazzo del Podestà holds an acoustic secret**: the **"whispering gallery"** — stand in one of the archway's four corners and whisper, **and someone in the diagonally opposite corner hears you clearly** over the noise of the square. ✅ The square is **free and always open**.
A great bronze of 1566, now Bologna's emblem.
A whisper in one corner heard in the diagonal opposite.
The old market lanes directly behind the square.
Piazza Maggiore, 40124 Bologna, Italy
**The medieval market lanes behind the square — and the reason Bologna is called «the fat».** ✅ **What it is**: a knot of narrow lanes **immediately east of Piazza Maggiore** that kept its medieval plan **and is still a working food market**, not a display. **Its street names name the trades**: Via Pescherie Vecchie (the old fish market), Via Drapperie (cloth merchants), Via Orefici (goldsmiths). ✅ **What is in it**: **shops of sausage and cured meats** (mortadella di Bologna, prosciutto), **cheese** (Parmigiano Reggiano from the same region), **fresh pasta shops** making it in front of you — **tortellini and tagliatelle** — **and vegetables and fish**. ✅ **The city's nickname**: Bologna is called **«the red, the fat and the learned»** — red for its roofs and its political history, **fat for its cooking**, learned for its university. ⚠ **What to know**: **the lanes are packed between 18:00 and 20:00**, when parts turn into something like an open-air bar; ✅ **the morning is better** for seeing it as a real market. ⚠ **Sitting down in the lanes costs more** than standing at the bar.
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