In the 16th century, when the original residential nucleus began to extend to the foot of the Castle hill, this area, around which a few scattered houses already stood, was largely occupied by a meadow, from which the Slovenian name originates Travnik by which the square was long referred to.
During the eighteenth century, following the construction of the Jesuit complex of Sant'Ignazio, which had favored the development of the city to the west towards the Corno and to the north along the road to Carinthia, this area was the subject of a series of urban redevelopment interventions which gave it the new name of "Piazza Grande". The construction of the monumental fountain of Neptune dates back to this period, built in 1756 by the sculptor Marco Chiereghin based on a design by Nicolò Pacassi, the Gorizia architect who designed the Schönbrunn palace.
Among the oldest buildings that overlook the square is the sixteenth-century palace built by the Counts of the Tower. Undergoing multiple renovations, in the Habsburg era it became the Palace of the Provincial Captain, or rather of the representative of the central government appointed directly by the emperor. After the passage of Gorizia to Italy, when the square had now taken on the new name "della Vittoria", the building was used as a Prefecture, a function it still maintains today. The definitive arrangement of the surrounding space, with the demolition of some buildings next to the Prefecture, the opening of the new via Roma and the construction of the INPS building next to the church of Sant'Ignazio, dates back to a renovation project urban planning carried out during the 1930s.