Piazza dei Ciompi

Now the site of a daily flea market, this piazza was a working-class neighborhood of primarily wool- and silk-trade workers in the 14th century. The disenfranchised wool workers, forbidden entry to the Arte della Lana (the Wool Guild, whose members included those who traded in wool), briefly seized control of the government. It was a short-lived exercise in rule by the nonrepresented and was eventually overpowered by the ruling upper class. The loggia, executed in 1567, is by Giorgio Vasari.

BACK TO SANTA CROCE