Campo Bandiera e Moro Square Site Features

San Giovanni in Bragora gives the square its shape. The present church was rebuilt in the 1470s on foundations reaching back to the 8th century, and its facade is brick Venetian Gothic of the plainest kind -- a tripartite front matching the three aisles behind it, a modest rose window, and almost no stone dressing. It is the working parish version of a style usually met in its expensive form.

Inside, the interest is early Renaissance painting rather than structure: Cima da Conegliano's Baptism of Christ of 1492-95 still stands over the high altar it was painted for, which is a rarer thing in Venice than the painting itself.

The church also holds the baptismal record of Antonio Vivaldi, baptised here in 1678 -- his family's parish church, and the font is still in the building.

Around the square, the 14th-century Gothic Palazzo Morosini and Palazzo Soderini face the church. The wellhead at the centre is Istrian stone, its rim carved with arches and ship motifs and lions at the corners, and it is the piece most people walk past without registering.

The church of San Giovanni in Bragora, the Gothic Palazzo Morosini (built in the 14th century), and Palazzo Soderini -- with its commemorative plaque to the Bandiera family -- all face onto the square. At its center stands a well made of Istrian stone, its upper rim carved with arches and ship motifs, chiseled lion figures at the corners, and a convex metal cover.

The campo lies in Castello, one street back from the Riva degli Schiavoni and roughly halfway between St Mark's and the Arsenale.

One street is the whole distance, and it makes all the difference. The Riva carries one of the densest flows of people in Venice; the campo behind it is residential, with washing lines, benches and children, and the noise stops at the corner.

The square sits on what was once its own small island -- bragora is the old name -- and it keeps the slightly irregular, closed shape of ground that was built up piecemeal rather than laid out.

Its buildings are unusually mixed for a square this size: an 8th-century church foundation, two Gothic palaces, and the ordinary houses between them, all facing the same open space.

Walking on east leads within ten minutes to the Arsenale gates and the Biennale, so the campo works naturally as a stop on the way rather than an errand of its own.