History of the Gurgitello

The spring that named a square

The official name of Piazza Bagni is Piazza Bagni di Gurgitello: spring and place are one and the same. The Gurgitello is the most famous source of the hydrothermal basin that supplies the central part of Casamicciola, and for centuries it has been the focal point of the town's thermal cures. For the features of the spring, see the page on the Gurgitello Spring.

From the Middle Ages to the 16th century

The spring was already in use in the Middle Ages. In 1588 the physician Giulio Iasolino described it in his treatise on the waters of Ischia, recommending it in particular for infertile women and those with stomach complaints. A few years earlier, by 1582, the noblewoman Geronima Colonna had promoted the restoration of the baths with the support of Bishop Fabio Polverino: a single vaulted room with a few masonry tubs.

The Pio Monte baths

From 1604 the Pio Monte della Misericordia built its baths and hospice right beside the spring, in a place called Casa Barbera. The bath house, reached from the hospice by a bridge spanning the road and the “lava pubblica” (the public watercourse), had tubs for lay and religious patients, as well as two sweat rooms. It was enlarged several times: a third bath was added in 1671, and by 1750 the complex included, besides the Gurgitello, the Denti water and the Capone water. Between 1778 and 1785 the engineer Giuseppe Pollio designed a new centrally planned sweat room and a new bath house with eighty cubicles, linked to the hospice by a long flight of steps.

Nobles, cardinals and the Bourbon establishment

Alongside charitable care, spa visits by the elite also grew. According to the inscriptions recorded by the spa that now uses its water, in 1698 Andrea d'Avalos had the establishment rebuilt, and in 1717 Cardinal Michelangelo Conti, the future Pope Innocent XIII, took a course of baths and mud treatments there. In 1852 Ferdinand II of Bourbon decided to build a large establishment over the Gurgitello bath: designed by the architect Pasquale Francesconi and built by Umberto Belliazzi's firm, it opened in 1856. Shortly afterwards Belliazzi became its owner. It is the building of today's Antiche Terme Belliazzi. The Manzi family's establishment also stood on the square, linked to Garibaldi's stay in 1864, told in Garibaldi and the Thermal Cure.

After 1883

After 1883 the Pio Monte rebuilt its hospice on the seafront, away from the spring, while the Bourbon establishment, according to its company history, came through those years unscathed. Piazza Bagni, transformed and enlarged, lost its central role in tourism.

The Gurgitello today

The Gurgitello's waters still supply the Antiche Terme Belliazzi, at Piazza Bagni 122, which are accredited with the Italian National Health Service for mud therapy, baths and inhalation treatments, and the thermal department of the Antiche Terme Manzi. In 2025 the Pio Monte della Misericordia complex became the property of the Municipality, under a plan that also includes restoring the Gurgitello spring.

How to get there

Piazza Bagni is about ten minutes' uphill walk from the harbour, or can be reached by bus or taxi.