Marian Square, Historic Centre, Žilina

This square is Žilina's most valuable coherent historic and architectural area. Its roughly 100 × 100 m square shape and preserved covered arcades, or laubne, are unique in Slovakia and give it a distinctive atmosphere. From the town's beginnings it was a trading center and home to municipal authorities and the wealthiest burghers and merchants. The square has 32 buildings, some with Gothic cellars. Renaissance buildings erected above them during the 16th and 17th centuries after the great fire of 1521 formed a continuous frontage that survives today. Rebuilding after fires in 1848 and especially 1886, and an earthquake in 1858, altered the original Renaissance fabric. Gradual reconstruction of the gabled roofs, all destroyed in 1886, is restoring the square's earlier character. A major overhaul took place in 1995–1997. Two restored wells supplied water until the early 20th century; their water is about 12 m below ground. At the center stands a Baroque statue of the Immaculate Virgin Mary, or Immaculata, placed there in 1738 on a pedestal with a relief of St. Florian. It commemorates the completion of the town's recatholicization.

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