Campo Bandiera e Moro Square

Campo Bandiera e Moro, in the Castello district, takes its name from three young Venetian patriots executed in 1844 for their part in a failed uprising against Bourbon rule in southern Italy. Long known simply as Campo della Bragora after the small island it sits on, the square still centers on the church of San Giovanni in Bragora, one of the oldest religious foundations in the city.

San Giovanni in Bragora is an active parish church with no admission charge, kept open by the parish rather than by a museum authority. The donation box is what pays for the hours it stays open.

Vivaldi's baptism draws a steady trickle of visitors to a small building that is otherwise used for services, and the courtesy is the ordinary one: quiet, no flash, and not during Mass.

The square is residential and its benches are in daily use by the people who live around it. It is one of the last squares in this part of Castello where that is still true.

Coming here takes pressure off the Riva degli Schiavoni thirty seconds away, which is among the most congested waterfronts in the city, and puts it into a square that has room for it.

Campo Bandiera e Moro is in the Castello district, a short walk from Riva degli Schiavoni, in a quieter residential stretch away from the busiest tourist routes near St. Mark's Square.