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Giuseppe Garibaldi Square
Garibaldi, Square currently the main tourist attraction in the city's old centre, for its beauty and sophistication, cultural interest and the presence of the most frequented venues, derives historically from the silting up of the ancient harbour basin by the Normans around, according to sources, 1049.
The central forecourt is bordered and surrounded by a perimeter along which a number of historically important monumental buildings are located, starting with Palazzo Rendella, built around the 1840s on the foundations of the old Spanish prison; the main floor, home to the city theatre until 1956, overlooked the ground floor used as the fish and mussel market.
It was only from 1956 onwards that the building was involved in the project to open the new municipal library, which originally housed a total of about 98,000 volumes, including modern and historical volumes.
The façade opposite the historic Caffè Venezia, where the Customs Agency used to be located, features the original Palazzo dei Gesuiti, now converted into a restaurant, which was built in Monopoli in the early 17th century as a boarding school offering a wide-ranging education to the upper middle class of the time, ranging from literature to philosophy and rhetoric. Expelled at the beginning of the 19th century, the building was converted into a residential area.
Lastly, the bell building, located at the junction of Via Garibaldi and the square of the same name, is noteworthy; at the base of the building is the so-called 'infamous column', to which lawbreakers were chained and exposed to public insults.
CREDITS: Comune di Monopoli.