The architect, Claude Nicolas Ledoux, had constructed there two pavilions for the collection of the octroi, a local tariff levied on products entering towns, which were burned during the revolution of 1789 but rebuilt and not completely eradicated until 1877.

The annexation of communities bordering on Paris and the suppression of the city walls in 1860 allowed for the construction of a large roundabout which, it was hoped, could play the role of a Place de l'Étoile of the left bank.

The project began with the construction, close to the Place d'Italie, of six inter-related towers, each about one hundred metres tall, but, because of scathing criticism from the Parisian citizenry and lukewarm support from the Giscard d'Estaing government, the effort, for the most part, was abandoned in 1975.

[6] This is a real apartment building with street-level stores in the square[7] (pictured in the insert above), built around the turn of the 20th century in a combination of French Mansard and English Jacobethan architectural styles.

Singer Céline Dion referenced the Place d'Italie in her song Trois heures vingt, written by Eddy Marnay in 1984 on her Les oiseaux du bonheur album.