Piazza dei Priori
The elm tree is long gone, but Piazza dei Priori still holds the same gravitational pull it always has. This is where Volterra conducts itself — market days, civic arguments, the slow afternoon coffee — on a rectangle of mason-cut stone ringed by 13th- and 14th-century palaces, some crenellated, some with Gothic two-light windows, all built from the same pale local stone that gives the town its particular quality of light.
At the head of the square stands the Palazzo dei Priori, finished by 1257 and still the oldest civic building in Tuscany. The clock on its facade has been running since 1393. The coats of arms of Florentine magistrates, rendered in glazed Della Robbia terracotta, are arranged across the facade like a permanent record of who held power here and when.
💛 What travellers fall for
People who come back tend to notice the Canna Volterrana — Volterra's old unit of measurement, engraved directly into the tuff stone between the ground-floor windows of the Palazzo dei Priori. It's easy to walk past. Once you've spotted it, you start looking more carefully at everything else the square has embedded in its walls.
The story behind Piazza dei Priori
Long before the first palace went up, this plateau served as a fairground and market, the bishop holding sway over civic life from what was then called the Bishop's Prato. Over time, a commune of townspeople gradually wrested that authority away, and the square began to acquire its permanent architecture as a statement of that transfer of power. The elm at its center was the original seat of government — consuls and elders meeting beneath it to draft new laws.
Construction of the Palazzo dei Priori began in 1208, commissioned by Ildebrando Pannocchieschi and designed by Richard of Como. It took until 1257 to complete. The building was consequential enough to serve as a direct model for Florence's Palazzo Vecchio. A mid-19th-century earthquake damaged the tower; architect Mazzei oversaw its reconstruction and added further embellishments to other buildings on the square.
Good to know
The piazza itself is free and always open. Palazzo dei Priori runs €5 for adults (April–October, 10:30–17:30; weekends only in winter). The Volterra Card at €16 covers the palazzo plus the Guarnacci, Pinacoteca, Roman Theatre and more across 72 hours — worth it if you're spending a full day in town.
Summer brings warm, dry conditions — July is the driest month and August regularly hits 30°C at midday, so the shaded edges of the piazza matter. Winter is cooler and quieter; the square empties out noticeably, and the stone takes on a grey, stripped-back character that suits the architecture well.
Where is Piazza dei Priori?
Location
- In Volterra
- 43.4014, 10.8603
- Open in Google Maps
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