The Piazza Leopardi is the formal centre of Recanati, named (of course) for the poet whose statue stands at its middle. The square is ringed by some of the town's most important buildings: the medieval Torre del Borgo, a stone tower 36 metres high that has stood here since the thirteenth century; the seventeenth-century Palazzo Comunale, still the town hall; and the church of San Domenico with its frescoes by Lorenzo Lotto.
The Torre del Borgo can be climbed — a steep narrow staircase rises through several floors to a viewing platform with one of the best panoramas in the Marche, from the Apennines inland to the Adriatic. The piazza fills up on summer evenings with the town's passeggiata, and the café tables on the south side are good for an early-evening Aperol with a view of the tower lit against the sky.