Campo de’ Fiori Market Photos

Campo de’ Fiori has been a popular Roman square since before the Middle ages, and since 1869 has held a daily vegetable and fruit market. Present day it has turned into a crossroad of sorts;  tourists can buy tacky t-shirts and umbrellas steps away from catching a glimpse of Italian market life.

Streets surrounding the market are named for their traditional trades. My favorite ones were Via dei Balestrari (street of the crossbow makers) and Via dei Baullari (street of the coffee brewers).

The Campo de’ Fiori market has been held everyday in the square since 1869.

Campo de’ Fiori’s trademark beverage is  fresh pomegranate juice. With each sale, the vendor cuts two pomegranates in half  and juices everything to order.

Mama soon learned that juicing pomegranates was no easy task…

 

But in the end it made for fantastic juice; slightly bitter due to the peel being left on, but very refreshing.

Out of everyone I met there, my favorite vendor was the man who sold fancy vegetable cutters. He had a ‘trademark’ cutter which cut a curly spiral from the center of a potato, leaving the remainder of the potato with a hole to stuff.

A fun fact I learned after visiting the market: Executions used to be held publicly at Campo de’ Fiori. Most notably, Giordano Bruno was burnt alive for heresy and his works placed on the Index of Forbidden Books by the Roman Catholic empire.