Lucia Belladonna is the founder and editor-in-chief of Campo De’ Fiori, a fiercely independent boutique publisher specializing in anything new, freethinking, and literary oddities that larger houses wouldn’t dare touch. Belladonna launched Campo De’ Fiori in the back of a converted greenhouse in Montefalco. Her first release, Letters to a Taxidermist, sold 113 copies and won zero awards—but it earned a cult following among librarians, anarchists, and divorcées Born in a vine-wrapped villa outside Monforte d’Alba, Lucia grew up with one foot in the wine barrels and the other in a stack of paperbacks she read under the table during Sunday dinner. Lucia champions voices that are sly, sharp, and subversive—novels that spill wine on the tablecloth. She lives with an aging whippet named Italo, a collection of vintage typewriters, and an ever-growing file of manuscripts too weird for the mainstream and too wonderful to ignore. Her guiding philosophy: “Print the beautiful, the broken, and the books that know they’re not meant to sell.”

Iris Mendelsohn grew up above a deli on the Lower East Side, where she developed a sharp tongue, an ear for good dialogue, and a lifelong allergy to small talk. After a decade clawing her way through the Manhattan publishing world—editing celebrity cookbooks by day and underpaid poetry by night—she did what every rational woman dreams of doing at least once: she quit her job, dumped her landlord, and bought a one-way ticket to Rome. Now the senior editor at Campo de’ Fiori Publishing, Iris lives in a sunlit apartment above a flower stall that wakes her at 5 a.m. with the scent of crushed basil and bad decisions. Iris is known for her no-nonsense edits, brutal honesty, and passionate defense of comma splices when used with intention. She believes the best books are the ones that make you laugh just before they break your heart. Her editorial motto: “Make it beautiful, but don’t lie.”
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Dante “Danny” Moretti is the U.S. liaison for Campo de’ Fiori Publishing, where he serves as translator, talent scout, and unofficial espresso snob. Born in Chicago to a Neapolitan tailor and a second-grade teacher with a Faulkner obsession, Danny grew up speaking Italian at the dinner table and quoting The Godfather with suspicious fluency by age ten. After a brief and humiliating career as a screenwriter (“three unproduced scripts and one restraining order from a producer’s assistant”), he pivoted to literary, eventually catching the attention of Campo de’ Fiori’s eccentric founder. Now based in Brooklyn, Danny works out of a tiny walk-up filled with advanced reader copies and dried lemon peels. His editorial philosophy is simple: “If it doesn’t make me laugh, cry, or throw the book across the room, I’m not interested.”
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Nico Santangelo is the overcaffeinated intern at Campo de’ Fiori Publishing, where he does everything from proofreading to tracking down missing commas. Born in New Jersey, raised in Brooklyn, and currently “temporarily” living in his cousin’s storage room in Garbatella, Nico came to Rome on a gap year. He studied Comparative Literature at Swarthmore College. He speaks fluent Italian when drunk and fluent sarcasm at all other times. His dream is someday to publish a novel about intergenerational trauma and tax fraud, or maybe just get hired. When he’s not sorting unsolicited manuscripts by typeface rage, Nico writes short stories on receipts, obsesses over Elena Ferrante, and stares longingly at flights back to JFK he can’t afford.