Belle Époque Spas and Hotels

A new map for holidays

After 1883 Casamicciola renewed itself. The new building rules advised building on level ground, away from the hills, and the town's centre moved from the upper town towards the Marina. It was here, between the late 19th and early 20th centuries, that the Belle Époque Casamicciola took shape.

The new Pio Monte on the seafront

The symbol of this rebirth was the new thermal hospice of the Pio Monte della Misericordia, opened on the coast in 1895. Designed by the engineer Giuseppe Florio using modern building methods, it was judged one of the foremost in Europe for its size and modernity: twelve dormitories, two bathing halls with eighty tubs, refectories, gardens and pinewoods across some 25,000 square metres. Next to it the Pio Monte also built a nursery school using the “baraccato” system: walls with a frame of chestnut trunks embedded in concrete, a technique of which many examples still survive in Casamicciola. The full story is in The Pio Monte and Thermal Care for the Poor.

Hotels by the sea

Hospitality, too, was reorganised near the coast. One example is the building at Via Principessa Margherita 32, completed in 1906: built as the Albergo Bellavista, later the Hotel Napoleon and Villa Salesiana, it stands out for its Ionic order and the statue of the Madonna and Child on the terrace cornice. Italy's national catalogue of cultural heritage records it as earmarked to become the Town Hall. In the following decades the coast continued to attract hoteliers: on Via Salvatore Girardi the former Hotel Italia, probably built in the 1930s, had a basement floor with thermal baths and enjoyed great fame in the 1960s.

The spas of Piazza Bagni

In Piazza Bagni the Gurgitello establishments carried on working. In the early 20th century an advertisement in the local magazine Il Casamicciola presented the Belliazzi establishment, now the Antiche Terme Belliazzi, with forty first-class and twenty second-class cubicles. Next door was the Manzi family's establishment, from which the Antiche Terme Manzi descend.

Science and a fragile land

The Belle Époque was also an era of science: the building regulations of 1884 suggested setting up an observatory in Casamicciola, later built at the Grande Sentinella: this is the Geophysical Observatory.

Into the 20th century

After the Second World War the island's tourism took new directions and the town, while keeping its spa vocation, was no longer the sole focus of holidays on Ischia. In 1956, to underline the value of its waters, the Municipality added “Terme” (spa) to its name. The story of the rebirth is in The Rebirth of the Spa Tradition after 1883; that of the previous era in Casamicciola, a European Spa Resort.

Where it is

To find these places, simply stroll between Piazza Marina, Corso Luigi Manzi and Via Principessa Margherita, then climb up towards Piazza Bagni.