CENTRO PIACENTINIANO, Dante Square - Ai Voice

Within the large urban plan conceived by Marcello Piacentini, Piazza Dante Alighieri represents the most intimate and reserved part of Bergamo’s new city center. While Piazza Vittorio Veneto was designed as a monumental and celebratory space, this square had a more everyday purpose, intended for bourgeois life, offices, and social gatherings.
The architectural layout is consistent with the entire Centro Piacentiniano: orderly lines, harmonious proportions, local materials, and understated elegance. The buildings surrounding the square were designed by some of the most renowned professionals of the time, including Luigi Angelini and Piacentini himself. Around the square are the Chamber of Commerce, the Credito Italiano headquarters, and other administrative buildings which, although different from one another, maintain a perfect stylistic unity.

At the center of the square stands the Piazza Dante fountain, completed in 1930, which completes its symmetry. It consists of a large circular basin with evenly placed water jets and classical decorative elements. After a long period of inactivity, it was restored and reactivated in 2022.
Beneath the paving of Piazza Dante hides another chapter of 20th-century Bergamo: the Albergo Diurno Metropolitano, inaugurated in 1929. It was an avant-garde facility designed to offer citizens and travelers a public service for personal care. It housed baths, showers, barbers, hairdressers, laundries, and even small tailoring workshops for clothing repairs. The underground rooms were decorated in a refined Liberty-Deco style: mosaics, mirrors, and glass lamps that created a sophisticated and surprisingly modern atmosphere. For decades, it was a symbol of efficiency and urban progress, until its closure in the 1970s.
After years of neglect, the former Albergo Diurno underwent a major restoration, which brought back its structure and part of its original decorations. Today, it houses a public venue used for dining and entertainment.

An interesting fact: Bergamo’s Albergo Diurno was among the first in Italy to offer personal hygiene and wellness services at affordable prices for everyone. Its success was such that in the 1930s it became a model for similar facilities in Milan, Turin, and Rome.