Ghisolfa is a district ("

quartiere A (; : , ) is an administrative division of Italy, roughly equivalent to a township or municipality. It is the third-level administrative division of Italy, after regions () and provinces (). The can also have the title of (). Formed a ...

") of

Milan Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

, part of the Zone 8 administrative division of the city, located north-west of the city centre. It is named after the "Ghisolfa Bridge" ("Ponte della Ghisolfa") overpass, part of the external Circonvallazione

ring road A ring road (also known as circular road, beltline, beltway, circumferential (high)way, loop or orbital) is a road or a series of connected roads encircling a town, city or country. The most common purpose of a ring road is to assist in reducin ...

enclosing the centre of Milan. In turn, the bridge was named after two '' cascine'' (farm houses), "Cascina Ghisolfa" and "Cascina Ghisolfetta", that existed in the area before the urbanization of the mid 20th century.V. Buzzi, ''Le vie di Milano: dizionario della toponomastica milanese'', Hoepli 2005, The bridge was completed in 1941, prolonged in the 1960s, and enlarged in the 1990s. Ghisolfa is a small district that used to be an industrial area and is now mainly residential, much like the adjacent

Bovisa Bovisa (, ) is a district (''quartiere'') of Milan, Italy, located north of the city center, in the Zone 9. The name is supposedly derived from the Italian word ''bove'', meaning ''ox'', as the area developed from an ancient rural settlement. Hi ...

district. It is traversed by two railways, respectively operated by

Ferrovie dello Stato Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane S.p.A. (; ; previously only Ferrovie dello Stato, hence the initialism FS) is Italy's national state-owned enterprise, state-owned railway holding company that manages transport, infrastructure, real estate service ...

and

Ferrovie Nord Milano 450px, Map of the main branch of the FNM lines. FNM operates also the Edolo.html" ;"title="Brescia-Edolo">Brescia-Edolo railway in eastern Lombardy, not shown in map. Ferrovie Nord Milano (FNM S.p.A.) is an Italian public transport company: the ...

. The district is usually considered a symbol of the

proletarian The proletariat (; ) is the social class of wage-earners, those members of a society whose possession of significant economic value is their labour power (their capacity to work). A member of such a class is a proletarian or a . Marxist philo ...

Milan, as low-income housing (especially "ALER" buildings) is prevalent. In recent years, it has also become one of the Milanese multi-ethnic districts. The

anarchist Anarchism is a political philosophy and Political movement, movement that seeks to abolish all institutions that perpetuate authority, coercion, or Social hierarchy, hierarchy, primarily targeting the state (polity), state and capitalism. A ...

circle of

Giuseppe Pinelli Giuseppe "Pino" Pinelli (21 October 1928 – 15 December 1969) was an Italian railroad worker and anarchist, who died while being detained by the ''Polizia di Stato'' in 1969. Pinelli was a member of the Milan-based anarchist association named ...

and

Pietro Valpreda Pietro Valpreda (29 September 1932 – 6 July 2002) was an Italian anarchist, poet, dancer, and novelist. He was sentenced to prison on charges of being responsible for the Piazza Fontana bombing in December 1969. In 1987, he was acquitted by It ...

, eponymously called "Circolo Anarchico Ponte della Ghisolfa", had its headquarters in this district.

References in popular culture

Several works of Italian writer

Giovanni Testori Giovanni Testori (Novate Milanese, 12 May 1923 – Milan, 16 March 1993) was an Italian writer, journalist, poet, art and literary critic, dramatist, screenplay writer, theatrical director and painter. Biography Childhood and youth “It i ...

are set in the Ghisolfa district; these include ''La Gilda del Mac Mahon'' and ''Il Ponte della Ghisolfa''. The latter was also the inspiration for

Luchino Visconti Luchino Visconti di Modrone, Count of Lonate Pozzolo (; 2 November 1906 – 17 March 1976) was an Italian filmmaker, theatre and opera director, and screenwriter. He was one of the fathers of Italian neorealism, cinematic neorealism, but later ...

's movie ''

Rocco and His Brothers ''Rocco and His Brothers'' () is a 1960 drama film directed by Luchino Visconti and starring Alain Delon, Annie Girardot, Renato Salvatori, Katina Paxinou, Roger Hanin, Paolo Stoppa, and Claudia Cardinale in one of her early roles. Set in 1 ...

''; several scenes of the movie, accordingly, were shot in the area.

Footnotes

{{coord, 45, 29, 43, N, 9, 09, 39, E, source:kolossus-itwiki, display=title Districts of Milan