piazza

Open square or marketplace, surrounded by buildings, in an Italian town or city. It was equivalent to the plaza of Spanish-speaking countries. The term became more widely used in the 16th–18th century, denoting any large open space with buildings around it. In 17th–18th-century Britain, long covered walks or galleries with roofs supported by columns were called piazzas; in the U.S. in the 19th century, piazza was another name for a veranda formed by projecting eaves.

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For the Brazilian footballer, see Wilson da Silva Piazza

For the American baseball player, see Mike Piazza

For the coupé car, see Isuzu Piazza

A piazza (IPA /'pjatsa/) is an open square in a city, found in Italy, and also in some other places on the Dalmatian coast and in surrounding regions; there is a good example of a piazza in Scotswood at Newcastle College. The term is roughly equivalent to the Spanish plaza. In Ethiopia, it is used to refer to a part of a city.

When the Earl of Bedford developed the first privately-ventured public square built in London, Covent Garden, his architect Inigo Jones surrounded it with arcades, in the Italian fashion. Talk about the piazza was connected in Londoners' minds, not with the square as a whole but with the arcades, which were called the "piazzas".

In Britain piazza now generally refers to a paved open pedestrian space, without grass or planting, often in front of a significant building or shops.

In the United States, in the early 19th century, a piazza by further extension became a fanciful name for a colonnaded porch. Yet, the word piazza was used by some, especially in the Boston area, to refer to a front porch, fanciful or otherwise, connected to a house or apartment.

Piazza is also a common last name for Italians and Italian-Americans. The name grew out of the region surrounding Venice, and large populations of Piazza reside in Calabria, Sicily, and Venice.

A central square in Gibraltar's Main Street officially named John Mackintosh Square is colloquially referred to as The Piazza.

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