Campo San Barnaba Site Features

Boschetti's church front of 1776 is a plain temple facade: four Corinthian pilasters carrying a pediment, almost no relief, and no sculpture. It is late and conservative for its date, and the flatness reads oddly against the medieval bell tower behind it.

That campanile is the older and more interesting structure -- 11th-century, in bare brick, with the conical spire that Venetian towers of that period generally lost in later rebuildings. It stands apart from the church, as most Venetian campanili do, because the ground could not be trusted to carry the two together.

The buildings enclosing the campo are modest three- and four-storey houses in rendered brick with shops beneath, which is why the church reads as the only formal element in an otherwise domestic space.

Just off the square, the Ponte dei Pugni keeps four white marble footprints set into the crown of the bridge. They marked the starting positions for the organised fistfights between the Nicolotti and Castellani factions that were held on parapet-less bridges like this one until the practice was banned in 1705.

A greengrocer's boat has moored along the canal beside the square for decades, selling fruit and vegetables directly from the water -- one of the last floating market stalls of its kind still operating in Venice.

The Ponte dei Pugni ("Bridge of Fists"), just off the square, was once the site of organized fistfights between rival Venetian factions, the Nicolotti and the Castellani, a tradition that continued until the practice was banned in the 18th century after the fights turned to using knives.

The campo lies in the middle of Dorsoduro, one canal back from the Grand Canal, between Campo Santa Margherita to the west and the Accademia to the east.

Unlike most Venetian campi it is not enclosed: the Rio di San Barnaba runs directly along its southern edge, so one whole side of the square is open water with a fondamenta rather than buildings. That is what makes room for the vegetable boat, which needs a mooring immediately against the square.

The Ca' Rezzonico vaporetto stop is a few minutes north on the Grand Canal, and the campo sits on the informal walking route between it and Campo Santa Margherita -- which is why a square with no monument of its own sees a steady flow of people crossing it.