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The Campo dei Fiori is officially
known as Rome's largest open air market, a vast square where the abundant
produce grown in the volcanic soil of the countryside is massed daily.
It was close to my Rome apartment, but this would be my first trip.
Babies in tow, we walked through a few narrow streets, turned a corner
and there it was - the market.
They had lied. Could Italy -the
country that produced Rafaelo, Tintoretto, Leonardo da Vinci create
anything so mundane as a market? What opened before us was a radiating
blend of oranges, reds, purples, of so many shades of green that color
streaked before the eye. No, this was not a produce market, this was
an impressionist painting, but this painting was alive and we could
walk into its opacity, soak in the saturating density of color.
Guided by my housekeeper, Virginia,
I wheeled the children around the vast market, all of us wrapped in
color, listening to the fugue of vendors' voices. "Fragole della
compagna," sang the strawberry vendor, who was then answered by
the other vendors. "Scampe fresche," sang the fishmonger,
"ci sono pomodori belli," responded the produce man, a round
sung loud in voices that hinted at the ability to produce a Pavarotti.
Rome was art and music, the sheer pleasure of beauty.
I bought grapes from stands that
were swarming with bees, trusting Virginia's assurance that the bees
were too drunk to harm anyone. I bought artichokes that came on long
stalks and were trimmed on the spot by the vendors. I bought delicate
white cherries whose stems had been woven together so that they resembled
bunches of grapes.
Virginia handled the money transactions,
but when we were nearly finished shopping, I knew it was my turn. I
had a large bunch of dahlias in my hand and had to pay the flower woman.
"Quanto costa?" I asked.
"Seicento lire, signora."
Six hundred lire.
Thinking she had said seven hundred,
I handed her too much money. She handed back one hundred lire, correcting
my Italian as she did. I had done it. I had made a purchase. My life
in Italy was official, and Rome was my home on that day.
From Diana's article on life in
Rome click for main article
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