Finding a good pension in Bologna

What is a pension in this context? I’m ignorant here.

A pensione is a guesthouse, but would tend to be called a B&B now.

I noticed while trying to find such a place in Abruzzo for this fall that it was difficult to tell whether a "B&B" meant a place with several rooms for guests and the owner living there and giving you breakfast in the morning, or just a room somewhere or other with packaged breakfast products available but no actual host or other guests. I don't know how to find a guesthouse B&B, except that an agriturismo is more likely to have a host and a few rooms and a real breakfast --- that doesn't help the OP with Bologna, though! Could try searching for "guesthouse."

I just looked quickly for pensione, albergo, guesthouse, 1 and 2 star hotels in Bologna using Google Maps. Not much luck --- I wanted to see photos of an actual breakfast room with fresh food. Not much luck, but "Room & Breakfast Santo Stefano" seemed possible and is in a part of Bologna we've stayed before. I wonder if the pandemic discouraged the kind of pensione you have in mind.

I think what I’m looking for are the small private hotels. When I’m over there (in Europe), it seems I see them everywhere. They tend to be family run and may serve breakfast (kind of a cross between a B&B and a larger hotel). I just wanted to book something ahead of time from the states, but don’t know how to find them from here.

I also think that what were once called pensiones now tend to be advertised as bed & breakfasts (without or without the breakfast) or sometimes as guesthouses. I found this site https://www.bed-and-breakfast.it/en/bologna?checkin=10/10/2024&checkout=10/15/2024&NumberRooms=1&NumberPeople=1&Children=&q=Bologna&tiporicerca=citta very useful for Bologna and some other places in Italy. In Bologna, I stayed at Casa Margot for a week. It worked great for me but read the listing to see if it fits your needs. It was a small studio apartment with a kitchenette stocked with pre-packaged breakfast supplies. The host was not on site but reachable by phone. I think some of the other listings on the b&b website may be closer to a traditional pension which I remember as rooms in the host's house or apparment.

You can find them on booking and airbnb also. Some list on those sites to get more business. I've stayed in some in various places in Italy and have found them cross listed.

As definition in Italy a "pensione" is a small hotel who provide even meals. In fact we translate "Full Board" as "Pensione Completa" and "Half Board" as "Mezza Pensione" (only dinner + breakfast). Often is family run and in the past was easy to find family who host tourists in their house for a medium period (like few months): in Italian we call it "stare a pensione".
Told that, you find "pensioni" mostly in little touristic towns and villages (for example in the Alps or in the Appennine) or in seaside areas, where tourists spend the whole day relaxing not being worried to prepare food and enjoying the day in relax (on the beach or hiking). A "pensione" usually offer not bad food, but only a fixed menu every meal or not more than a couple of choices: that is the reason why is usually an economic solution.
Bologna is not the typical market where tourists asks for a "pensione": the most want a B&B or a standard hotel. There are some hotels that act like a "pensione" (usually 2 or 3 stars), but mostly located in the suburbs because are used mostly by workers who are temporary in Bologna.

This is all so helpful. Thank you!

They mostly disappeared. The pension was a hotel that provided breakfast, lunch and dinner, often with a fixed menu and where you would sign up in advance. The demand for that type of arrangement has slowly disappeared, even at seaside resorts where they used to be very popular with Italian families spending their summers on the beach, also the costs of keeping a staffed kitchen for the 3 meals no longer made it a profitable option for operators given the dwindling demand. So nowadays many of those accommodations have morphed into Bed and Breakfast, where they offer only a bed and a breakfast (if that), as the name suggests. If you go to booking.com or similar, you can filter for B&B and find those types of lodgings.