In Venice there are said to be 102 places that carry the name ‘campo“. These spaces are now flat, stone-paved areas that in any other city would be squares, plazas or piazzas. Most histories assert that the campi were once fields, often associated with the local church that opened onto them. Here vegetable crops could be grown and animals could be grazed and watered (wells opened up for such purpose continue as a feature of many campi to this day). Over time the growing urban nature of the city saw the social gathering and trading functions create the need to pave over these fields. The campi of twenty-first century Venice are still, largely, social gathering and trading places, albeit the locals may now find themselves sharing many with the invading tourists. Yet in some campi local life predominates, especially in the afternoons when the children spill out after school to play, watched over by chatting parents. And in many less-frequented campi, one finds a sense of peace – an occasional local walking a dog, a delivery person hauling a load on a functional metal trolley, older residents in muted conversation – but a peace tinged with a sense of melancholy that seems to be mourning for the gradual decline of Venice as a city to live in.
My self-published photobook, Campi di Venezia, contains photographs of 52 campi taken from regular visits to the city between the time of our two-month sojourn in 2014 and our week-long visit in 2025.
