The main square of Acquapendente, named after the anatomist Girolamo Fabrici born here in 1533, with his statue at the centre and three sixteenth-century palaces around the neoclassical town hall.
At a glance
- Type
- Town square
- Where
- Acquapendente, Province of Viterbo, Lazio, Italy
- Coordinates
- 42.7438412° N, 11.8649135° E
- Named after
- Girolamo Fabrici d’Acquapendente, born here 1533
- Statue
- By Tito Sarrocchi
- Town hall
- Neoclassical, designed by Guglielmo Meluzzi
Overview
Piazza Girolamo Fabrizio is the main square of Acquapendente, in the Province of Viterbo, in northern Lazio. It is named after Girolamo Fabrici d’Acquapendente, born in the town in 1533 to a noble family, who at seventeen moved to Padua to study medicine and became one of the great anatomists.
History
Tito Sarrocchi carved the statue that stands at the centre of the square. Fabrici is shown with his head tilted slightly forward, as if caught in the act of explaining a discovery: in one hand he holds the surgeon’s knives, with the other he leans on a pedestal on which his books are laid.
The town hall was built in the decades after the unification of Italy, on the site of the older palace: an imposing neoclassical work designed by Guglielmo Meluzzi.
What you see
Three sixteenth-century palaces face the square, their doorways framed in the local basaltina stone: Palazzo Petrucci-Piccioni opposite the town hall, Palazzo Benci-Caterini to its right and Palazzo Savini-Costantini to its left.
With the adjoining Piazza Guglielmo Oberdan, Corso Taurelli Salimbeni, Piazza Nazario Sauro and the two small squares of the Rigombo and Rugarella fountains, it forms a sequence of spaces that gives the town centre an unusually coherent plan.
Practical information
- Access: Via Porta Sant’Angelo, 01021 Acquapendente (VT), Lazio. Open square, always accessible.
- Acquapendente lies on the Via Francigena, the pilgrim road to Rome.
Sources
- Cultural Heritage Online historical archive — original Italian entry (beniculturalionline.it), transposed and corrected 2026.
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