Town Hall

Piazza della Libertà: town centre, the heart of Maranello.

Its history is only recent; it was built after the 1929 recession to combat unemployment by creating jobs for the local people. Italy was then under Fascist rule and the name chosen for the new square was Piazza Roma: the current name, Piazza della Libertà, dates from the years after the Second World War. During the Fascist period, the square was used for physical exercise drills and gymnastics displays. Then, in 1938, the new Town Hall, in Rationalist style, was built next to the square; it still houses the municipal offices.

It was about that time that Maranello was awarded its official town crest: approved in 1931, the crest shows a pear tree intertwined with a grape vine, with its roots in a fertile green meadow. The tree stands for “resilience”, and it and the vine refer to the main crops produced in the area, which had a mainly agricultural economy for many centuries.

In 2000, artist Mario Montanari made a mosaic of the Maranello Town Crest right here in the paving of Piazza della Libertà. It consists of sixteen thousand dots of marble and semi-precious stones from all over the world: almost one dot per member of the town’s population, symbolizing its spirit of unity and hospitality.