Before this piazza, Via di Mezzo crosses, on the right, the Vicolo Giannotti which connects up to Via del Duomo and, on the left, Via di Borgo which we will comment on briefly elsewhere.

Piazza Salvi is smaller than the one we have just left, but not any less interesting, and in it are many references to the times when Barga was under the government of Florence. In particular there is the Medici column, which is a copy of the original column erected in the year 1584 in honour of Cosimo I.

Then there is the stone replica of the Marzocco, the heraldic lion emblem of Republican Florence, but its origin and date are uncertain. The Marzocco faces the Loggia del Mercato, a charming open gallery, used at one time for the exchange of goods. Today it is the outdoor extension of the recently restored Capretz coffee house, which was once an important meeting place.

On the wall of the terrace behind the coffee house, is a stone plaque which records the meeting, on August 3, 1897, of two famous personages of the Italian Risorgimento, Antonio Mordini from Barga and Matteo Renato Imbriani. On the plaque are inscribed the following words of Giovanni Pascoli, who also frequented this historical coffee house and who was a particular friend of the owner Italiano Capretz:

G. PASCOLI

The emblem of Barga from a document dated 1500

Also facing onto the Piazza Salvi is a part of the Palazzo Pancrazi. This building was refashioned around the middle of the 16th Century to give it the pure Florentine style seen today. At one time the Loggia dei Mercanti, already mentioned, came right up to it. The Palazzo is now the Town Hall and is used for council offices and for official archives. Here the documents of the administrative life of Barga are deposited, dating back to the 13th Century. In the late 50's, all these papers were reorganised and a catalogue was compiled with much patience and fortitude by Pier Giorgio Camaiani, but it has never been published.