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When an architect, historian, and philosopher talk about public space, do they mean the same thing? Arguably not, and the beauty of the site is no answer to their dispute. The calm assurance of civic squares in Italian communities offers a challenge to something that may seem self-evident: urban history denies public spaces any architectural quality other than that of receiving and organising scathing bodies and assembled languages. This explains why the author chooses not to dwell on this aspect, preferring to measure the intensity of their historical potentiality. Making use of the past in this instance once again serves to cast glints of intelligibility onto an uncertain present. What makes it uncertain? A number of confusions that the present article sets out to clarify, for instance the fact that public places neither guarantee nor promise the presence of a public space. This is a history not just of spaces but also of struggles, not just of rallies but also of dispersion, as the most highly politically fraught moment is always the one when the crowd disbands. There is therefore little point in lamenting that we do not all share the same words to speak of the commonplace: the uniquely historical potentiality of public spaces lies first and foremost in how they are spaced.