We are in Piazza Lucio Valerio Pudente, seemingly the barycenter of the ancient city.
Behind us is the Cathedral of San Giuseppe, to the right and left are neoclassical-looking houses and others that seem even older.
In front of us is the beautiful pedestrian street that, gently sloping towards the hills, leads to Piazza Diomede and ends on the side of Palazzo Palmieri.
Although it may seem strange, the square is located in an area outside the “Guasto d’Aymone,” founded on Roman Histonium, and is also external to the high medieval nucleus that arose around the current church of Santa Maria, called Castel Gisone.
It would have been the union of the two residential nuclei, sanctioned in the 13th century with the construction of Angevin walls to incorporate this area and make it central to the new city layout.
Now look to your left, towards the North. You will notice a curious pink building with Venetian-style bifores and trifores.
Built in the 1930s by the former mayor of Vasto, Don Florindo Ritucci Chinni, it is a tribute to the city’s mercantile past, which has always had important trade relations with the Republic of Venice, even without being part of it.
Now enter the street that connects Piazza Pudente with Piazza Diomede on the side of the Castle. Here too, we are in a medieval area, but completely transformed just over a century ago. Between 1910 and 1912, the street was widened, and many buildings were reconstructed.
Look again to your left. The building at the corner with Via Bebbia is called Palazzo Mattioli and is now owned by the Municipality, serving as an exhibition venue.
It presents itself on both facades with a simple rusticated ground floor and, on the upper floors, with four pilasters and between them, three balconies or windows.
In 1895, Raffaele Mattioli was born here, who would later become the most important Italian banker of the 20th century, president of Comit and founder of Mediobanca.
Opposite, at the corner with Vicolo Raffaello, Palazzo Fanghella has a similar appearance, always with three floors and three orders per facade but only windows on the first floor and balconies on the second.
Continue along the street and stop at the intersection with the only street that intersects it, which to your left is Via Santa Maria and to your right is named Via Marchesani.
Medieval Vasto ended here, and at this point, there was probably a “land” gate. After the city’s conquest, Giacomo Caldora decided to build new walls that would encompass the suburbs that had grown outside them.
He erected a mighty castle as a bastion in the center of the earthen walls, and the space between the previous walls and the castle became the main center of city trade but also the place of the pillory and public executions.
Now move to the highest point of the square, southwest, towards the border with Piazza Rossetti.
You have reached the point where one of the four gates of the city opened in modern times, the Castello gate. Turn around and observe the perspective that now encompasses the Cathedral of San Giuseppe and, in the background, the 16th-century Palazzo d’Avalos.
To your right is Piazza Rossetti, carved from the Roman amphitheater. To your left is one of the two surviving bastions of the Caldoresco Castle.
Two thousand years of history condensed into a few meters, but an urban perspective that begins in contemporary times with the early 20th-century renovations of the street and ends with interventions on the church of San Giuseppe during the fascist period.
