Piazzale Loreto
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Piazzale Loreto is a major city square in
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 ...
.


Origin

The name ''Loreto'' is also used in a wider sense to refer to the district surrounding the square, which is part of the Zone 2 administrative division, in the northeastern part of the city. The name "Loreto" derives from an old sanctuary that used to be there and that was dedicated to Our Lady of Loreto (a town in the
province of Ancona The province of Ancona () is a Provinces of Italy, province in the Marche region of Italy. Its capital is the city of Ancona, and the province borders the Adriatic Sea. The city of Ancona is also the capital of Marche. To the north, the province ...
).


Transportation

The
Milan metro The Milan Metro () is the rapid transit system serving Milan, Italy, operated by Azienda Trasporti Milanesi. The network consists of five lines with a total network length of , and a total of List of Milan Metro stations, 125 stations (+2 in con ...
Loreto station on line 1 is located partially underneath the square; it is an important transfer station with line 2. The tracks and platforms of this latter line are located, however, underneath nearby Piazza Argentina.


History

The square, on 10 August 1944, was the scene of the public execution by the German occupation authorities of 15 Milanese civilians handpicked by Theo Saevecke, head of the
Gestapo The (, ), Syllabic abbreviation, abbreviated Gestapo (), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of F ...
in Milan, as a reprisal for a partisan attack on a German military convoy. The executed were left on display for a number of days. The event became known as the "massacre of piazzale Loreto" and the executed as "martyrs of piazzale Loreto." In the aftermath of that event, Mussolini is said to have prophetically remarked "for the blood of Piazzale Loreto, we shall pay dearly". The square, for a time, was renamed Piazza Quindici Martiri in honour of the executed. Subsequently, Piazzale Loreto was the scene of the public display of
Benito Mussolini Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (29 July 188328 April 1945) was an Italian politician and journalist who, upon assuming office as Prime Minister of Italy, Prime Minister, became the dictator of Fascist Italy from the March on Rome in 1922 un ...
's corpse on 29 April 1945. The day before, Mussolini, his mistress
Clara Petacci Clara "Claretta" Petacci (; 28 February 1912 – 28 April 1945) was a Mistress (lover), mistress of the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. She was killed by Italian resistance, Italian partisans during Death of Benito Mussolini, Mussolini's summar ...
and some other high-ranking Fascists had been captured and shot by partisans in Giulino, near
Lake Como Lake Como ( , ) also known as Lario, is a lake of glacial origin in Lombardy, Italy. It has an area of , making it the third-largest lake in Italy, after Lake Garda and Lake Maggiore. At over deep, it is one of the deepest lakes in Europe. ...
. Their bodies were taken to Milan and hung upside down from the roof of an
Esso Esso () is a trading name for ExxonMobil. Originally, the name was primarily used by its predecessor Standard Oil of New Jersey after the breakup of the original Standard Oil company in 1911. The company adopted the name "Esso" (from the phon ...
petrol station A filling station (also known as a gas station [] or petrol station []) is a facility that sells fuel and engine lubricants for motor vehicles. The most common fuels sold are gasoline (or petrol) and diesel fuel. Fuel dispensers are used to ...
in the square, located between Corso Buenos Aires and Viale Andrea Doria. On 29 April 1945, fascist party '' gerarca'' Achille Starace, who had been living in Milan, was recognized and arrested by government forces. He was turned over to the partisans who tried him and sentenced him to death. He was taken to the square and shown the body of Mussolini, which he saluted before being executed himself. Starace's body was subsequently strung up next to Mussolini's. The bodies were photographed as the crowd vented their rage upon them. The display of the bodies took place in the same spot where they had displayed the fifteen Milanese civilians whom they had killed in retaliation against partisan activity. After the war, the design of the square was changed to accommodate increasing road traffic in the city.


See also

*
Death of Benito Mussolini Benito Mussolini, the deposed Italian fascist dictator, was summary execution, summarily executed by an Italian partisan in the village of Giulino di Mezzegra in northern Italy on 28 April 1945, in the final days of World War II in Europe. T ...


References

{{Districts of Milan Loreto