Piazza Aurelio Saffi

It has a trapezoidal shape and measures m. 128 of medium length and m. 87 of width. Formerly it was partly outside the city and was called 'the field of the abbot' because the land belonged to the abbot of San Mercuriale. On the sides of the square are important historic buildings: Palazzo Comunale, Palazzo del Podestà, Palazzo Albertini, Palazzo del Credito Romagnolo, Basilica of San Mercuriale, Palazzo delle Poste and Telegrafi. In the center stands the monument to Aurelio Saffi created by the sculptor Filippo Cifariello of Naples and inaugurated in 1921, was destroyed by an air bomb in 1944. In 1961 a copy of the statue was reconstructed, wanted and financed by Cavalier Aldo Zambelli, in agreement with the municipal administration. Near the monument there was once the Crocetta, that is the expiatory chapel erected by the Forlivesi on the immense grave of the fallen bloody pile of May 1, 1282, the famous massacre that the Ghibelline Forlivesi of Guido da Montefeltro carried out against the French soldiers of Guido D Appia in the pay of Pope Martin IV. The building was destroyed in 1616 and in its place was raised, between 1636 and 1638, a column above which, on April 23, 1639, was placed a statue representing the Madonna and Child Jesus. In October 1909 the monument was pulled down. Now the statue is located in Piazza del Duomo.