Palazzo di Città

In 1472 the Turin City Administration installed itself in the area where still today there is the Palazzo Civico.

For centuries the Municipality, lacking of a seat where the Council could meet, administrate the justice and keep the papers, found every time hospitality in the residences of important city families or in makeshift rooms.

Palazzo di Citta'

In that year a building was bought, and many others were bought later, until the entire block overlooking the ancient market square (piazza delle Erbe, now called piazza Palazzo di Città), was occupied by the municipal seat.

Building, renewing, rebuilding came as time passed by. The main and most ancient core of the actual Palazzo Civico is constituted by the building projected by the ducal architect Francesco Lanfranchi, realised between 1659 and 1663.

In the building of Lanfranchi the space distribution system is similar to the one in the 17th-century noble palace: behind the solemn façade there is the route characterised by the hall (that opens itself to the internal court) and by the staircase that leads to the open gallery and the main room, re-modelled in the 19th century by Lorenzo Lombardi and Ferdinando Bonsignore.

On the façade, with a porticoed central body and an only distinctive tract, there is a balcony supported by a system of pillars, which testifies the opening of the palace to the city.

In 1756 the royal architect Benedett Alfieri intervened on the building by adding a porticoed span on the sides.

The last interventions made are from the second half of the 19th century, by Giuseppe Talucchi, with the elevation of the palace in the central part.