Bagno dei forzati, Church building in Livorno, Italy

Bagno dei forzati was a quadrilateral fortress-like building in Livorno, bounded by sloping brick walls topped by a patrol walkway, with a bell at each corner for the guards' signals. A large courtyard held a water cistern and, near the south side, a well; a pincer-shaped staircase led to the upper floors and guard quarters. Behind it stood 58 grain pits entered from via della Biscotteria and the royal ovens that baked bread for the prison and the whole city.

Construction began in 1598 under Grand Duke Ferdinando I de' Medici to a design by Alessandro Pieroni, reusing part of the 14th-century Pisan walls and the earlier Bastione della Cera. It held Turks captured and enslaved by the Order of Santo Stefano, up to 2,000 in the early 17th century, and Tuscan debtors. Suppressed in 1766 and turned into a naval institute, it was demolished in the 1930s for the Palazzo del Governo.

The complex had a mosque for the Turkish prisoners, who reached about 2,000 in the early 17th century, with their own minister called "coggia". Catholics had a chapel in each dormitory and a common church, later assigned to the Arciconfraternita della Purificazione. Prisoners could open shops in the city and keep part of their earnings.

The site lay between the port and Piazza Grande, in the area now occupied by the Palazzo del Governo, a short walk from Livorno's centre. Nothing of the Bagno survives above ground, so look for the Government Palace and the nearby churches of Sant'Antonio and della Purificazione, left standing when the area was cleared in the early 20th century.

A printing house located within the compound published the first anonymous edition of Cesare Beccaria's influential 'On Crimes and Punishments' in 1764. This work became one of the most important texts of the Enlightenment period on criminal justice and human rights.