Piazzale Loreto

Piazzale Loreto is a large square in Milan’s north-eastern Zone 2, named after a vanished sanctuary to Our Lady of Loreto. The square sits where an old road once led north, and today it carries heavy traffic through the city. Beneath the square lies the Loreto Metro station, a busy junction where lines one and two meet. The station’s platforms for line two sit under nearby Piazza Argentina, a short walk away. The area around the square is a working district with shops and apartment blocks. The square is remembered for two grim events in 1944 and 1945. In August 1944 German forces executed fifteen civilians chosen by Gestapo chief Theo Saevecke after a partisan attack. The bodies were left on display for days, an act that became known as the massacre of Piazzale Loreto. In April 1945 the bodies of Benito Mussolini and his mistress Clara Petacci were brought from Lake Como and hung upside down outside a petrol station in the square. Fascist leader Achille Starace was later shot there after being forced to salute Mussolini’s corpse. Visitors today find a busy square framed by modern buildings and wide roads. The Metro station entrance stands at the square’s edge, linking the area to the rest of Milan. A plaque marks the spot where the fifteen civilians were killed, and a small monument recalls the display of Mussolini’s body. The petrol station where the bodies hung has been replaced by a different building, but the square remains a place where Milan’s wartime past is recalled.