Piazza del Campo

Downtown Sienna
Siena, Italy

Contributed by Project for Public Spaces

An open plaza located at the physical and cultural heart of the city. Its red-brick fan shaped paths radiate out from the facade of the Palazzo Pubblico.

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05/30/02 Luigina Ciolfi said:

Piazza del Campo is a great space. It is by all means the heart of the city and the palce where all the major social events happen: not only the famous "palio" (the competition between city districts that features a horse race in the square itself twice a year), but also everyday meetings and chats. In the summer, and especially at night, it turns into a huge open air living-room, where people sit down, have a drink, an ice-cream, play music and talk...until the police arrives. A fabulous space.

07/29/02 Christina Ferracane said:

No need for benches or sitwalls here. People comfortably sit down and lay out on the piazza as if it truly were a campo (field).

09/09/02 S. Eisenberg said:

The city has 50,000 residents and the piazza can fit 30,000 (crowded together, as happens for the Palio). That means the piazza can accommodate the whole adult population -- the entire public. There are entrances to the piazza from every side. All the town's roads seem to lead to it, so wherever you wander, you keep coming back to it. Each time, the experience of emerging from the narrow medieval streets into that beautiful open shell makes you gasp again.

04/29/04 derya oktay said:

Piazza del Campo is unique by its perfect 'entity'. In this great exterior living room, you perceive everything as an organic part of the whole... all buildings surrounding the space, the palace, the huge tower 'torre del Mangia', even people who lay down on the ground... they all serve the spirit of the place. Its effect is surely strenghthened through the contrasting qualities of the narrow and winding streets orienting people to the square.

09/22/04 Patricia Greason said:

One of my favorites, too. On a recent visit, we were told by our guide that the design had to do with the fact that it is one of the few cities in the world not located along a body of water. The plaza was constructed to allow rain water to collect in large cisterns at the vortex and under the plaza.

11/02/05 Brian Davis said:

Good info on the cisterns and reasons for the slope towards the middle of the plaza...

That being said, I think this is one of the most over-romanticized places in the world. It is unbelievably hot in the summer as the whole thing is paved with dark stone and lacking a single tree. When I was there, everyone was trying to get out of plaza unless they were sitting in the shade of the tower (a sight to see, a barren plaza except for the edges and people sitting in the long shadow of this tower), around the water fountain at the top, or at one of the cafes. All of the cafes around the plaza are overpriced and not great, and most of what is sold by the vendors that proliferate like mosquitoes is tourist flags and pins... nothing interesting.

Don’t get me wrong, it is has great things, too. But people talk about it as if the Second Coming will happen here. I found the little terrace plaza located about 100 yards from the Campo that looked out over the surrounding countryside to be much better. It is located at the end of a street that winds behind the government building with the tower. If you go to Siena, walk through THE CAMPO to this little plaza and have a coffee or meal at one of the empty restaurants while you look of the countryside surrounding Siena.