The Field of Flowers

The Campo de' Fiori, front yard of the University of Washington Rome Center. By morning it presents a bustling marketplace and by evening it is a setting for restaurants and nightlife. In the center of it all stands a bronze sculpture in honor of Giordano Bruno, who in February of 1600 was burned alive at that spot for heretical thought -- you know, insisting the Earth revolved around the Sun and all that stuff. Unlike Galileo, who renounced his theories and saved his own life, Bruno found no reason whatsoever to repent. Four hundred years later, the Catholic Church still hasn't cleared his name.