Mastio della Cittadella

Following the treaty of Cateau-Cambresis in 1559 Emanuele Filiberto, duke of Savoy, chose Turin as the capital of the State for political and strategic reasons.

In 1564, the duke charged the architect Francesco Paciotto with projecting a huge pentagonal citadel (in surface like the area occupied by the medieval city), to be erected in soeth-west Turin.

The works proceeded fast thanks to the vast financial investments (in 1564 the works began and in 1566 there was the official inauguration): the city and the territory needed an immediate intervention from the strategic and defensive point of view.

Inside the pentagonal citadel a double-flight well was built, which allowed, in case of siege, a constant water supply.

The citadel was then a conditioning element in the urban choices: the entire area occupied and the surrounding areas are kept for years, even after the Napoleonic occupation and the demobilization of the great part of the Savoy fortresses, an obstacle for the city development.

Only at the middle of the 19th century, when the defensive function of the fortress decayed, it is decided its complete demolition (1856); a year later the "Enlargement project towards the Citadel", foresaw the subdivision of the freed areas.

Only the donjon, later restored in eclectic shapes by Riccardo Brayda, signs still today the ancient access to the citadel; inside it there is the National Historical Museum of Artillery.