Piața Mare (Great Square), Sibiu

Piața Mare is the central square of Sibiu's Upper Town and the largest public square in the old town. Its formation is linked to the completion of the third ring of fortifications in 1366. A document of 1408 calls it "Maior Circulus vulgariter Kornmargt" ("the Great Ring, popularly the grain market"), and another of 1411 records the sale of a stone house here. Over time it was called Grosser Platz and Grosser Ring, from 1919 King Ferdinand Square, from 1948 Republic Square, and since 1990 Piața Mare again. The square was used for markets, citizens' assemblies and executions. Johann Sachs von Harteneck, Count of the Saxons from 1691 to 1703, was beheaded here in 1703. A circle of red stone in the paving on the east side marks the site of the Roland statue, recorded in 1550 and demolished in the mid eighteenth century, beneath which capital sentences were carried out. On the west side stand the Brukenthal Palace (1778-1788), home of the Brukenthal National Museum, and next to it the Blue House (Möringer House); on the north side are the Roman Catholic Holy Trinity Church, the former Jesuit church (1726-1733), and the Council Tower, through which one passes to Piața Mică. Around the other sides are the Haller House (fifteenth to sixteenth centuries), owned by the Haller family for 354 years, the Hecht House, the Lutsch House, the Weidner-Reussner-Czekelius House and the City Hall Palace, formerly the Land Credit Bank, in Art Nouveau style. Almost all the buildings around the square are listed historic monuments. In the early communist years the city architect Otto Czekelius prevented the demolition of the medieval buildings on the north side, where tower blocks had been planned. The square was fully renovated between December 2004 and 2006 and is pedestrianised. It holds the bronze statue of Gheorghe Lazăr by the sculptor Radu Aftenie (2006), the statue of Samuel von Brukenthal and a memorial plaque in the paving for the victims of the 1989 Revolution in Sibiu.