Piazza Maggiore is the civic heart of Bologna in the account of its November 1920 crisis: a public square in which municipal authority, mass politics, and armed confrontation converge. Overlooked by Palazzo d’Accursio, the city’s seat of government, it becomes the setting for a day of crossfire that kills ten people and wounds fifty, and for a political rupture that ends the elected council’s authority. Later, the square also serves as a stage for Fascist displays organized around Leandro Arpinati. Its significance lies in this double role: it is both the setting of a collapse in civic order and a place where political power is publicly asserted.

Civic Setting and Political Tension

Palazzo d’Accursio, beside the Basilica of San Petronio and overlooking Piazza Maggiore, had long housed Bologna’s civic power, whether senatorial or municipal. In November 1920, that civic setting was surrounded by exceptional security. After secret negotiations between the police and Fascists, the parties had agreed that the Fascists would not attack unless the great bell rang, and that the red flag would be displayed only at the close of the council session. The prefect nevertheless requested reinforcements, and on the morning of November 21 troops, cavalry, Carabinieri, and Royal Guards converged on the historic centre. The account describes Bologna as a city under siege.

Around two in the afternoon, a procession of roughly two thousand Socialist delegates entered the square, in keeping with the agreement made with the police. Entrances from Via Rizzoli and Via Indipendenza had been closed, and Carabinieri secured the perimeter. A small group of Fascists had apparently entered before the closures; perhaps a dozen gathered under the canopy of the Restaurant Grande Italia, among the thousands of Socialists massed around the Neptune Fountain. Within Palazzo d’Accursio, the inaugural council session was being prepared. Royal Guards watched the entrance from the courtyard, while armed Socialist guards appeared on the balconies. The square had become a tightly enclosed political space, with opposing groups, officials, and armed men within sight of one another.

The Confrontation of November 21

At 2:30, a red flag appeared on the Asinelli Tower, breaking the terms of the agreement. Fascists led by Leandro Arpinati left their headquarters on Via Marsala and marched towards Piazza Maggiore in squads. A smaller contingent entered through an opening made for cavalry and sang its anthems at the edge of the Socialist crowd. At three, the council session began. The new mayor, Enio Gnudi, delivered his inaugural address without incident. Half an hour later, he leaned from a balcony of the Red Room to greet the crowd among the red flags of Socialist associations. He released doves from a cage; the birds circled above both factions, with small red flags tied to their tails.

A shot from the Restaurant Grande Italia shattered the uneasy pause. Twenty-six Fascists from Ferrara broke through the security cordon with clubs. Gunfire from the restaurant was returned from the palace balconies, and further shots came from the Neptune Fountain. Caught in the crossfire, the crowd scattered, many people rushing towards the palace courtyard. From the balconies, Socialist guards mistook those seeking shelter for Fascists attacking the building and threw five grenades. The confrontation spread beyond the square into the council chamber, where an unidentified Socialist militant fired at minority councillors whom he believed responsible for the bloodshed. Giulio Giordani, a Nationalist councillor and former soldier, was killed. He was not a Fascist in life, but after his death he became a Fascist martyr in the political account of the conflict.

Political Consequences

The account gives the toll as ten dead and fifty wounded. It also records conflicting reports about Arpinati’s actions: some said he had urged the Fascists to attack near the statue of Neptune; others claimed they had seen him enter the palace courtyard with a gun. These reports remain rumours and hearsay in the narrative, rather than established facts. What followed is clearer. The Socialist military organization lost credibility, and the party’s reputation was damaged. Amid arrests and scandal, Bologna’s democratically elected municipal council resigned en masse. The prefect appointed a commissioner to govern the city. The square, where the council’s public authority had been surrounded and overwhelmed, thus marks a change from elected municipal government to administration imposed by the prefect.

Arpinati and the Square as a Political Stage

Piazza Maggiore’s role in the narrative continues beyond the November confrontation. Arpinati, though secretary of the Fascist organization, could not control its members’ votes during an internal dispute. In street clashes, however, other men followed him, including Dino Grandi, and the squads acclaimed him as their leader. The account associates him above all with Bologna: he did not understand the countryside, but the city was his. That distinction helps explain why the square mattered not only as the location of a single crisis but also as a centre of Fascist public life.

On weekends, Arpinati and his followers travelled to towns in the province, attacking Socialist meeting places, union headquarters, and municipal buildings, and seizing opponents’ flags. Those flags were sometimes burned at public bonfires in Piazza Maggiore. In this recurring display, the square becomes a place where political victory is performed before a crowd: opposition symbols are taken from their owners and destroyed in the city’s central civic space. The November violence and the later bonfires differ in scale and immediate purpose, but both connect the square with the contest over who could command Bologna’s public life. Piazza Maggiore remains the setting through which the narrative shows municipal authority giving way to a politics of armed pressure and public spectacle.