Also called Piazza Mercato (market), or “miez o mercato” (“in the middle of the market”), because that was where the city’s market used to be held. In May 1866 a law obliged the Municipalities to build an area specifically for a public market if there wasn’t already one. Initially the area chosen was in the present Viale Enrico Caruso, near Piazza Tasso. However, it didn’t last very long, since to have the market in the main square of a touristic city was considered inelegant and therefore another area was chosen. A priest, Andrea Veniero, donated to the Authorities some of his land adjacent to the Church dell’Annunziata and facing the new main road, and that is why it is called Piazza Veniero.
In the middle of the square a rectangular building was erected following the model of French markets such as Halles di Baltard. It consisted in a large one storey shed built with bricks, 7 metres high. Everything was protected by an iron cover under which fruit stalls and stalls of other produce were displayed. Wood was also sold, used by the blossoming Sorrentine industry of inlaid wood. Near the square the equipment for the “public weighbridge”, the so-called “bascuglia”, was interred. The wooden logs to be weighed were transported by horse-drawn carts, unloaded, placed on the scales and registered.
Starting in the ‘50s the market was moved elsewhere out of the historical centre.
