Piazza Fontana

Place of meeting and commercial exchanges, Piazza Fontana, formerly called “Piazza Maggiore” or “Piazza Grande”, was built thanks to the Byzantines in the 10th century. In medieval times, in fact, the Emperor Nicephorus II Phocas started an impressive reorganization of the urban spaces of the city, expanding them with a sea fill.

In this area of ​​the city there were the so-called “Citadella”, a fortified area built several times starting from 1404, the period in which Raimondello Orsini del Balzo chose Taranto as the seat of his vast principality. The so-called “Citadella” was demolished several times between 1884 and 1893.

The medieval square had a fountain and some water troughs for the animals and could be considered the commercial center of the city and the fulcrum of city life. The ancient public fountain, which was served by the Triglio Aqueduct, was built at the behest of Charles V of Habsburg, from which the urban space took its name after its inauguration in 1543.

In 1861, the ancient work (that was decorated with the Austrian coat of arms, cherubs seated on dolphins, tritons and statues of pagan gods) was replaced with a much simpler and less decorated structure signed by the architect de Florio. In 1992 the square underwent important changes; also, the space occupied by the nineteenth-century fountain was completely redesigned by Nicola Carrino. Since then, the plaza hasn’t changed

The archaeological excavations have returned the evidence of the important past of the urban space by re-emerging the foundations and portions of the north and east wall of the quadrangular tower built by Raimondello Orsini del Balzo, as well as other military works aimed to protect the access to the city.