The Pio Monte and Thermal Care for the Poor

A work of mercy born in Naples

The Pio Monte della Misericordia was founded in Naples on 19 April 1602 by seven young noblemen determined to carry out the seven corporal works of mercy at their own expense. It is the same institution that in 1607 commissioned Caravaggio's famous painting The Seven Works of Mercy, still in its headquarters on Via dei Tribunali. One of those works was caring for the sick, and it was this commitment that brought the institution to Casamicciola.

The hospice in Piazza Bagni

In January 1604 some of the governors, accompanied by the physician Giulio Iasolino and by architects and master builders, came to the island to choose the site. On 19 February 1604 the governor Carlo Caracciolo di Vico formally proposed founding a hospice for the sick poor; the choice fell on a place called Casa Barbera, near the Gurgitello spring. In 1605 the institution bought the land, and in July the first season of treatment was held for 25 patients; the house was completed in 1606. A bequest received that same year made it possible to enlarge it according to the 1610 design by the Theatine architect Francesco Grimaldi.

Over the next two centuries the hospice grew steadily, with new wards, dormitories and a loggia overlooking the sea. In 1741 it took in more than four hundred patients, and between 1778 and 1785 the engineer Giuseppe Pollio designed a new sweat room and new baths with eighty cubicles. A plaque now on the façade of the complex recalls the hospice “the first opened in Europe” in 1604. The model of care was simple and generous: the poor were offered treatment, board and lodging free of charge for a course of cure (the sources speak of fifteen or twenty days).

Rebirth by the sea

After 1883 the Pio Monte decided to rebuild the hospice in a new place, on the coast. The new complex, designed by the engineer Giuseppe Florio using modern building methods, opened in 1895. It was considered one of the largest in Europe: across some 25,000 square metres it comprised twelve dormitories, two bathing halls with eighty tubs, refectories, gardens, two pinewoods and a chapel. Next to it the institution also built a nursery school, now the Santa Maria della Provvidenza institute.

Abandonment and rebirth

For around eighty years the hospice provided free treatment to a great many sick poor. Between the late 1960s and the early 1970s activity ceased, and the complex, listed as cultural heritage in 1990, fell into long neglect. On 17 September 2025, with its purchase, the complex became the property of the Municipality of Casamicciola Terme. The plan is to house schools, public services and cultural spaces there and to restore the Gurgitello spring. The page on the Pio Monte della Misericordia complex describes the building.

Where it is

The 19th-century complex stands on the seafront, on Corso Luigi Manzi, just beyond Piazza Marina, and is clearly visible as you arrive by ferry. The original site of the hospice is in Piazza Bagni, beside the Gurgitello spring, where the story told in History of the Gurgitello begins.