Triona Square

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🎧 STAGE 6 – TRIONA SQUARE: THE BEATING HEART OF THE COMMUNITY

In the beating heart of Bisacquino lies Piazza Triona, a symbolic place where history, culture and social stratification have been intertwined for centuries. Its location is not accidental: it is located next to water springs, on Acquanova Street, where women once fetched water and farmers brought their animals to water. Crafts such as leather tanning and milling developed around this area, making it the economic and social hub of the village.

Its origins probably date back to the Arab period, given its proximity to the Saracen quarter. In Norman times the first mother church arose here, a sign of a stable and structured settlement. The square was born spontaneously, but over time it took on a recognizable form, becoming an identity and functional space for the entire community.

Over the centuries, the square was symbolically divided into zones, called “chiani”: one designated for the people(u chianu di lu fundacu), one for the clergy(u chianu della chiesa), and one for the nobility(u chianu du Municipio), while the central space was reserved for the transit of carts.

Until the 1950s, this division was keenly felt: each social class attended only its own portion of the square. The recreational clubs also reflected this division: the Civilians by the Town Hall, the Catholics next to the church, the Bourgeois near the Fondaco, and the artisans in the central area.

The old fountain in the center of the square, dating back to the 17th century, was decorated with masks and a six-pointed star coat of arms-an ancient heraldic symbol of Bisacquino. In the 1930s it was replaced, but the masks were preserved and reused in the new structure.

Triona Square was not only a physical space, but a theater of oral culture. In the stories collected by Giuseppe Pitrè, we find terms and formulas of the local dialect-such as munacheddu, which evokes theinnocence of childhood, or cuntu, which is not just a fable but a tool for the collective transmission of memory.

Invocations such as “Chi viri, chi veni…”opened the tales of the village sage, who, in a sing-song tone, transformed the square into a stage for narrative rituals.

Thus, Triona Square continues to represent a microcosm that has guarded social transformations, language and traditions over the centuries, keeping the essence of bisacquinese community living alive.