Francesco da Montefeltro - Piazza Del Campo

Today I am walking through the streets of Siena and I somehow made my way to the Piazza del Campo, a place that was once the heart of the city. The Campo was a treasured area, one with much investment from the government to maintain its uniform structure and general cleanliness. It was a lively marketplace filled with families wandering the market booths, children laughing and running, and merchants endlessly negotiating their prices. One can’t help but admire its beauty. I had to walk through a dark alleyway which is the only way to access it, a detail specifically incorporated to create this vast sense of marvel when you step into its vast open space with bright white walls, making whatever comes before it dull in comparison.

My father used to laugh at how serious our government was about preserving the beauty of the Piazza del Campo. They had passed numerous laws banning things such as hay and straw, barber merchants, and balconies from obstructing its perfection. No part of its beauty was a mere accident, the uniformity of its buildings and the sheer vastness of the area were all ordered and maintained, all of which is clear to any man standing at the center of it. I turned my attention to the far end of the Campo where a horse race track sits right next to the Torre del Mangia, an outstanding tower, and Palazzo Pubblico, a castle structure for the government officials. One of the main events hosted in the Piazza del Campo is a horse race twice a year, the Palio de Siena, an event very dear and valuable to the people of this city. Hundreds would gather to watch horsemen race for sport, chanting for their favorite athlete, clapping, and laughing. My father told me standing admits such a crowd, with the sounds of excitement and horse shoes clamoring filling up the air, overwhelms one with joy.

The way the masses have reacted to the plague split them up into different groups. Some have decided to live their life to the fullest, spending every day like it might be their last, going out drinking every night, celebrating, and only speaking of positive and joyful subjects. Others have isolated themselves, locked in their homes in fear of catching the disease. And there were the cowards that fled, leaving their neighbors behind. Between those that fled and have isolated themselves, as well as the overwhelming number that have died, the lively group is not enough to fill the voids the plague has created. They cannot fill the Piazza del Campo to make it feel as crowded and joyous as it once was.