Resistance Square

Piazza della Resistenza, known by the people of Pistoia as 'Piazza d'Armi', is one of the symbolic places of the remembrance of city's resistance and was the site of the Allied field hospital after the Liberation. 

The main monument is the War Memorial, which was inaugurated in 1957. It is composed of three massive coarse blocks of red limestone, extracted from a quarry in Monsummano Terme, which form the base, core and top of the monument. The work symbolises the strength, perseverance and sacrifice of the partisans who perished in the War of Liberation. It is surrounded by a low, circular hedge, which is interrupted to allow frontal access. Commemorative ceremonies are held here every year on 25 April (Liberation of Italy) and 8 September (Liberation of Pistoia). 

New memorial installations related to WWII were created in the square and in the immediate vicinity: a monument to the child victims of the Shoah; a plaque to the women enlisted in the Força Expedicionária Brasileira (FEB); a plaque to the Roma who were persecuted and deported by the Nazis; and a plaque to the Jew Renato Moscato, captured in Pistoia and victim of the Shoah. Two further plaques are currently planned: one dedicated to the Women's Defence Groups, a resistance formation that also originated in the Pistoia area, and another one to the Jewish partisans of Pistoia. 

The neighbouring Medici fortress at Santa Barbara also serves as a site of resistance remembrance. Here, on 31 March 1944, Italian Social Republic troops shot four men among deserters and draft dodgers: Alvaro Boccardi, Aldo Calugi, Lando Vinicio Giusfredi and Valoris Poli. A plaque was put up in their memory. 

Finally, an adjacent street was dedicated to the partisan commander Manrico 'Pippo' Ducceschi and the nearby ARCI club La Fortezza was named after the partisan Loriano Bugiani, who died on 9 September 1944. 

A project by the Pistoia municipality, CUDIR and a number of local associations is underway to transform Piazza della Resistenza into a 'Park of Remembrance'.