Carpi and Piazza dei Martiri
One of the largest squares in Italy
In the plain north of Modena, Carpi is an elegant Renaissance town that owes its appearance to the Pio family, lords of the city from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century, and especially to Alberto III Pio, a humanist prince, pupil of Aldo Manuzio and friend of the great intellectuals of his time, who in the early sixteenth century transformed the medieval village into an ideal Renaissance city. Its heart is the immense Piazza dei Martiri, about 276 metres long, one of the largest squares in Italy, lined on one side by a long portico of 52 arches and dominated by the façade of the cathedral and the Palazzo dei Pio.
The palace, a castle transformed into a princely residence, with towers of different eras and a beautiful Renaissance courtyard, houses the Musei di Palazzo dei Pio, with frescoed rooms, the civic museum and a collection of scagliola, a technique of decoration imitating marble and inlay, a speciality of Carpi. In the same building is the Museo Monumento al Deportato, a moving memorial dedicated to the victims of the Nazi camps, with graffiti of phrases from the letters of the condemned. A few kilometres away is the former Fossoli camp, a transit camp from which thousands of Jews and political prisoners were deported to Auschwitz and other camps, among them Primo Levi, in 1944; it can be visited. Carpi is also known for its textile and knitwear industry.
Tip: the square comes alive with the Thursday market and in the evening; visit the Fossoli camp with a guided tour by the Fondazione Fossoli.
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