The square is the heart of every Italian city. In the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, many are created following very original projects. But some squares hide secrets in their own structure and their own name. Their form is shaped directly on the oldest buildings or on the pre-existing spaces, still preserved below. We literally walk over history, but often we do not notice.

Piazza dell’Anfiteatro in Lucca

Piazza dell'Anfiteatro in Lucca is the clearest example of this phenomenon. Its name is anything but casual and in fact it rises just above the Roman amphitheater of the II century A.D. It begins to play a function of square in medieval times, when it was called Parlascio, derived from the Latin "paralisium", that means precisely "amphitheater".