Field o' Flowers

Today Pantheon Institute student services coordinator Zach Nowak led a group to Campo de’ Fiori, one of Rome’s most colourful squares. The Campo was originally a meadow (the name means literally “field o' flowers”) because it lay in the low land near the Tiber River. Development began in the fifteen hundreds with several Renaissance palaces, but the piazza retained its plebeian character and became a center of commerce, something to which the cross-streets attest: Via dei Balestrari (crossbow-makers), Via dei Baullari (coffer-makers), Via dei Cappellari (hat-makers), Via dei Chiavari (key-makers) and Via dei Giubbonari (tailors).

The Campo wasn’t all fun and games, though, as it had a permenant gallows for executions. The most famous of these was the philosopher Giordano Bruno. On 17 February 1600 he was burnt alive by the Roman Inquisition because his ideas (such as heliocentrism) were deemed dangerous. Today a tall statue of him stands in the middle of the campo: Bruno stands defiantly facing the Vatican, reinterpreted in the first days of a reunited Italy as a martyr to freedom of speech.

Less gruesome and now more famous, though, is the Campo’s vegetable and flower market. Since 1869 there has been a vegetable and fish market there every morning, which was the reason for today’s outing. Zach pointed out the best places to get arance rosse (blood oranges) and Roman broccoli, described as “broccoli on acid” by Wikipedia. This market is within three minutes of the Navona dorms of the Pantheon Institute, and is another way that the Institute uses all of Rome as a classroom. Arrivederci!

Want to get a better look? Click here for a short video showing Campo de’ Fiori.