Verona has sold vegetables, fish, and gossip on this stretch of ground since it was the city's Roman forum two thousand years ago, and the market stalls with their striped umbrellas have barely paused since.
What ties the centuries together is stone: a fourteenth-century fountain topped by a Roman statue the Veronese call Madonna Verona, a thirteenth-century canopy called the capitello where mayors once took office, and the frescoed Case Mazzanti lining one side in faded color. The 84 meter Torre dei Lamberti climbs from one corner, and Palazzo Maffei closes the far end with a row of stone gods on its roofline. Sit at any of the surrounding cafes and you are watching the same transaction, produce for coin, that Roman Veronese made on this exact spot.
