The Pincio Staircase in Bologna: the stairs up to Montagnola Park
The Pincio Staircase is the grand flight of stairs that climbs from piazza XX Settembre up to Parco della Montagnola, in Bologna. It opened in 1896, is free to walk up, and ends at a panoramic terrace looking out over via dell’Indipendenza.
Photo: Antonino Diano, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Where: piazza XX Settembre, at the start of via dell’Indipendenza (the main shopping street), 489 metres from our apartments, a 6 to 7 minute walk.
- When: outdoors, no ticket. The light is best in the late afternoon, because the monument and the terrace face west.
- What you see: 72 cast-iron candelabra, five reliefs, the Nymph fountain and the portico on via dell’Indipendenza.
- How long it takes: twenty minutes for the staircase, an hour if you carry on into the park.
- Worth knowing: the “Galleria del Pincio” that comes up on Google is not a hall you can walk into, it is the name of a street beside it.
Where it is and how to walk there
The staircase closes off the north side of piazza XX Settembre, where via dell’Indipendenza runs into the ring boulevards. It is the first monument you meet walking in from the central station, and from Viale Angelo Masini 20 it sits 489 metres away: six or seven minutes, flat the whole way. Parco della Montagnola, which the stairs exist to reach, is a little further on, roughly 620 metres, eight minutes.
Those figures come from the real walking route, not from a straight line on the map.
What the Pincio Staircase actually is
Until the end of the nineteenth century the Montagnola was an awkward sort of garden. It sat up high on an embankment and you got there by uneven ramps. In , at the urging of mayor Alberto Dallolio, the city decided to give it a proper monumental entrance and handed the project to two Bolognese professionals: the architect Tito Azzolini and the engineer Attilio Muggia, a pioneer of reinforced concrete in Italy and later the teacher of Pier Luigi Nervi.
Building went on for three years with 100 to 150 labourers a day, and the excavated earth was not thrown away: it filled in the moats of the city walls between porta Sant’Isaia and porta Lame. On King Umberto I and Queen Margherita inaugurated it in front of an enormous crowd.
The name is borrowed from Rome. After unification several Italian cities called their public belvederes Pincio, a nod to the Pincian Hill in the new capital. The parallel holds here too: a monumental staircase, and a terrace at the top that looks back over the city.
Three parts make up the whole: the flights of steps, lined with 72 cast-iron candelabra carrying six or four lamps each; the portico on via dell’Indipendenza; and the arcade running along the old walls. Set into the middle of the main front is the fountain.
The Nymph fountain, or the Giant’s wife
Photo: Timothy A. Gonsalves, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
The scene goes like this: a nymph has fainted, an octopus has hold of her, and a sea horse is hauling her out of the water. Diego Sarti modelled it, Pietro Veronesi cut it in marble, and the overall design belongs to Azzolini and Muggia.
In the Bologna of the 1890s a female figure this openly sensual in a public place caused a fuss, and locals immediately renamed her la moglie del Gigante, the Giant’s wife. The Giant is Giambologna’s Neptune, a kilometre away. Giosuè Carducci liked the nickname enough to write a sonnet called La Moglie del Gigante, later collected in Rime e ritmi (Zanichelli, ), an imaginary conversation between the two statues.
Five reliefs: the city’s history on a wall
Most guidebooks mention the two reliefs on the main front and leave it there. There are five, and lined up they cover four centuries of local history: the university, communal liberty, a battlefield victory, the expulsion of the Austrians, and the demolition of the papal fortress that stood exactly where the park is today.
| Relief | Sculptor | What it shows | Where |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bologna docet | Arturo Colombarini | Bologna the teacher: the oldest university in the western world | main front |
| Bologna Libertas | Ettore Sabbioni | The motto of the free commune, still on the city coat of arms today | main front |
| The return from the victory at Fossalta | Pietro Veronesi | The battle of 1249, when Bologna captured King Enzo | side front |
| The expulsion of the Austrians | Tullo Golfarelli | The uprising of 8 August 1848 at the Montagnola | side front |
| The destruction of the Rocca di Galliera | Arturo Orsoni | The papal fortress pulled down by the Bolognese: its rubble is the embankment the park stands on | side front |
The terrace and the evening light
Photo: Marco Menegatti, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
At the top of the side flights there is a terrace over the rooftops and the porticoes of via dell’Indipendenza. It is not a postcard viewpoint like the one at San Luca, which sits on a hill 280 metres up and takes in the whole plain. Here you are only a few metres above street level, looking at the city from close range, roughly at cornice height.
The detail that matters for photographs is the orientation: the staircase and the terrace face west, towards piazza XX Settembre and via dell’Indipendenza. In the morning the main front sits in shadow and the carving looks flat. From late afternoon onwards the light comes in low and the stone warms up. That is when the fountain and the reliefs give you their best, and it is also the hour when people from Bologna come up and sit on the steps.
Photo: Ugeorge, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Parco della Montagnola, the oldest garden in Bologna
Past the terrace the Montagnola opens out, and it is the oldest public garden in Bologna. Under those tree-lined avenues sits an embankment of rubble, the remains of the Rocca di Galliera, the papal fortress the Bolognese pulled down in . The area went over to public use in , with vegetable plots and mulberry trees, and was redesigned in the French manner between and on Napoleon’s orders, to a plan by Giovanni Battista Martinetti.
On Fridays and Saturdays the flank of the park hosts La Piazzola, the old market of piazza VIII Agosto: stalls of clothes, fabrics and assorted bric-a-brac that are an institution in this city. If you happen to be around on those days, expect noise and crowds, which is precisely the reason to go.
1919 postcard, Wikimedia Commons, public domain
Galleria del Pincio: clearing up the confusion
Look up the Pincio and you keep landing on “Galleria del Pincio”, which sounds like a covered passage or a hall tucked under the staircase. It is neither. Galleria del Pincio is a street, named in , linking via dell’Indipendenza to piazza dell’Otto Agosto along the side of the monument. Nothing to visit, no ticket, you just walk through it.
A tip from people who live two minutes away. Do not stop at the fountain. Take the side flights up to the terrace, walk along the balustrade towards via dell’Indipendenza, then look down: from up there you see the porticoes from above, which is a view you almost never get in Bologna. The right moment is half an hour before sunset, when the stone shifts from grey to gold. And if you have another twenty minutes to spare, the little window on via Piella is a short walk from here. Those two are the oddest things to look at in this part of town.
Staying a few minutes from the Pincio
The Pincio is where the Bologna of the boulevards turns into the Bologna of the porticoes, and staying on this side means passing it on your way home every evening. Our 4 Star Bologna apartments are at Viale Angelo Masini 20, six minutes on foot from the staircase and ten from the central station, with self check-in and an office open every day from 12:00 to 22:00. If you are still weighing up which area to pick, our guide to where to stay in Bologna compares neighbourhoods and real walking distances; once you have decided, you can check availability directly.
Pincio Staircase: frequently asked questions
The questions our guests ask most often before they head over.
Where exactly is the Pincio Staircase in Bologna?
In piazza XX Settembre, at the start of via dell’Indipendenza, between the central station and the old centre. It climbs up to Parco della Montagnola. From the station it is about a ten minute walk.
Can you walk up the Pincio Staircase, and is there a charge?
You can walk up freely and there is no ticket. It is an open public space, open all year round.
What is the best time of day to photograph the Pincio Staircase?
Late afternoon. The monument faces west, so it stays in shadow in the morning, while in the hours before sunset it catches low raking light, which is what brings out the sculpture and the reliefs.
Why is the fountain called the Giant’s wife?
Because the Bolognese decided she was the natural partner for Giambologna’s Neptune, known locally as the Giant. The nickname came from how sensual Diego Sarti’s nymph was, and it ended up in a sonnet by Giosuè Carducci.
What is the Galleria del Pincio?
It is a street, not a place to visit: it links via dell’Indipendenza to piazza dell’Otto Agosto and takes its name from the monument it runs alongside. It has been called that since 1970.
Is Parco della Montagnola always open?
The park is fenced and the gates are closed in the evening, but the hours have changed several times in recent years and the city does not publish a settled version. During the day access is always free; for a late evening visit it is worth checking on the spot.
Written by the 4 Star Bologna team, who run apartments at Viale Angelo Masini 20, six minutes on foot from the staircase. Dates, names and measurements are checked against the Comune di Bologna chronology (Biblioteca Salaborsa) and the Storia e Memoria di Bologna archive; walking distances are measured along the real pedestrian route.
See also: Secret and unusual Bologna: hidden places, curiosities and legends · What to See in Bologna in Half a Day: 8 Offbeat Stops and the Minutes Between Them
4 Star Bologna 2021
