Piazza dei Signori and Via Dante

A curtain of ancient buildings surrounds Piazza dei Signori, which is dedicated to the Seigniory of Carrara. You will admire the elegant Loggia del Consiglio, also called della Guardia (1496-1553) with a big portico preceded by a large flight of steps and the Palazzo del Capitanio (1605), whose façade includes the triumphal arch (1532), also called dell'Orologio. Going beyond the arch, you will get into the Court Capitaniato. Further on the left you will admire the Court Valaresso, dominated by a great seventeenth-century staircase that goes up to the Sala dei Giganti (Giants Hall). The Sala exhibits stunning frescoes dating back to the XVI century, now enclosed into the Liviano: large edifice designed by Gio Ponti in 1939, to house the current college of liberal arts.

Via Dante is one of the oldest streets in town, winding among elegant buildings until Piazza Petrarca, where is the Church of St Maria del Carmine (1494), designed by Lorenzo da Bologna, who made the Renaissance sacristy, too. Notable frescoes attributed to fourteenth-century Venetian painters adorn the nearby Scuola del Carmine (sixteenth century).