Campo de' Fiori: the market and the artisan lanes
A morning market under a brooding statue, the old craft streets, and Rome's grandest courtyard. This is a Claude-drafted route awaiting the editor's walk.

1. Campo de' Fiori market
Come in the morning, when it's a real market and not an evening drinking square. Stalls of fruit, veg, flowers and spice fill the *campo* under the hooded statue of Giordano Bruno, burned here for heresy in 1600 and still glowering at the Vatican. Buy fruit; skip the tourist pasta-shaped stalls.

2. Via dei Cappellari
Duck out of the south corner into the hatmakers' lane — narrow, dim, washing overhead, furniture restorers and frame-gilders still working in ground-floor shops. This is the medieval grain of the quarter, barely changed. Walk it slowly.

3. Palazzo Farnese
Out into the formal square for the grandest Renaissance palace in Rome, partly designed by Michelangelo, now the French embassy. You can't wander in, but stand in the *piazza* and take the facade whole — the twin fountains are repurposed Roman baths.

4. Via Giulia
The dead-straight street Pope Julius II cut in the early 1500s, lined with palaces and antique dealers. Walk under the ivy-draped arch of the Farnese — a bridge that was meant to leap the river but never did. The quietest grand street in the centre.

5. Santa Maria dell'Orazione e Morte
Halfway down Via Giulia, the church of the brotherhood of the dead, its facade studded with carved skulls and winged hourglasses. A strange, sombre pause; glance up at the marble *memento mori* and walk on.

6. Via dei Giubbonari
Loop back toward the river road along the old tailors' street — now small clothing shops and bakeries, busier and brighter than the lanes you came through. A bright finish before the tram on Via Arenula.

Campo de' Fiori: the market and the artisan lanes