Piazza Rossetti is considered the center of modern Vasto. The large space around it, the presence of grand buildings, medieval towers, and the Castle in the background make it seem like this has always been a central place. However, in reality, we are outside the Caldoresco walls, and until a century ago, the “Spianata del Castello” was the dirt clearing where the San Gaetano fair was held, and animals were traded.
The square is oval, and the major axis is oriented in a North/South direction. To the north, the square is closed by the facade of Palazzo Palmieri, a neoclassical work from the early 19th century built on the ruins of a part of the Caldoresco Castle. To the south, the perspective of Corso Italia opens up, with beautiful twin buildings built in the 1920s to accommodate the growing educational institutions of the city.
On the west side, the square is bordered by Corso Garibaldi, the modern artery that was part of the Adriatic highway’s route until the 1960s, connecting Trieste to Otranto through major inhabited centers. The houses facing that facade have been partially obtained from the former Convent of the Paolotti, of which the church of San Francesco da Paola remains, commonly called dell’Addolorata, with a beautiful 18th-century facade.
The east side is the most interesting one. It is a compact wall of buildings from different eras, which together form a perfect semi-ellipse that ends to the south with a tower over 20 meters high. Behind the facade of the buildings, the bell tower of Santa Maria stands tall. In the shop windows of some stores, you can still see Roman wall remains revealing that the wall structure was from Vasto’s amphitheater, reused in the 13th century for the city’s first expansion and crowned in 1439 by the defensive tower now called “Torre di Bassano,” taking its final form in the 18th century.
During the early 20th century, it was believed that the new center of Vasto should take on the monumental appearance it deserved. At the same time, the population’s desire to pay homage to Gabriele Rossetti as a symbol of the resurgence and new national consciousness grew.
For this reason, after various attempts made since the end of the 19th century to raise the necessary funds, at the end of World War I, the city’s mayors and then the mayor Pietro Suriani managed to finance the construction of the monument to Gabriele Rossetti and inaugurate it in 1926. The ceremony was attended by His Royal Highness Prince Umberto of Savoy, the heir to the throne.
Today, the square is well-maintained and rich in allegorical meanings. At its center stands the monument to the poet Gabriele Rossetti, surrounded by an octagonal flowerbed enclosed by a gate enriched with Masonic symbols. The white stone pavement is marked by geometric designs outlining an octagon and a four-pointed star.
The monument, made of bronze by the Neapolitan sculptor Filippo Cifariello, features an idealized Gabriele Rossetti dressed in late 19th-century attire, engrossed in reading the Divine Comedy. The poet is surmounted by an eagle ready to take flight. On the stele against which the poet leans, the medallions of his four children appear, most of whom had become famous in England as poets or painters. The works are placed on a stele of Gioia del Colle stone, on the back of which is sculpted in bas-relief the profile of Dante. Also from 1926 is the large monumental fountain in the northwest flowerbed, the endpoint of the Sinello aqueduct’s construction, which would have meant significant progress in distributing drinking water to all homes in Vasto. The work, originally consisting only of the large circular stone basin still bearing the Savoyard coat of arms on all four sides, surrounded by two large fasces littori, was modified in the 1970s with the addition of a central structure that creates pleasant water features.
