2 – DELLE ERBE SQUARE (ENG)

Delle Erbe Square is believed to correspond to the area of the oldest Roman settlement in Carrara. Roman traces in this area are rare because the main urban center was the nearby Roman city of Luna (modern-day Luni). However, with the fall of the Roman Empire, Luna lost its importance and prominence, while Carrara, along with its marble, began to rise in significance.

The face depicted in the mural, created by Wally and Alita of the Orticanoodles collective, is Francesca Rolla, one of the women who saved Carrara from the evacuation ordered by the Germans. In 1944, the Nazis aimed to secure one of the two ends of the Gothic Line, a system of fortifications built to halt the Allied advance, and ordered the population to leave Carrara. On the morning of July 7, a group of women protested in this square by overturning baskets filled with food from the market onto the ground. They then marched to the Nazi-Fascist command center, shouting that they would not abandon the city. Despite facing armed threats, they stood their ground and managed to have the decree suspended.

Carrara, Massa, and Montignoso became strongholds of resistance, and the courage of Carrara’s women earned the city the Gold Medal for Civil Merit.