Via Milano and Piazza della Repubblica

At the beginning of the 18th century the Contrada of Porta Palazzo, which goes through the medieval city connecting the Piazza delle Erbe (the actual piazza Palazzo di Città) with the northern door, is object of important interventions of rectification on a project by Filippo Juvarra (1729), the urbanistic, architectonical and functional re-qualification of the neighbourhood was part of the more complex picture of the political plan and of the will to state again the new role for Turin as the capital of the reign.

Juvarra decided the drawing of a new axiality aiming to rationalize the linking route between Porta Palazzo and the Palazzo di Città: the enlargement and the straightening of the Contrada started urbanistic restructurings in the northern area.

The northern entrance of the city, linking point with the suburban axis with Vercelli, was solved by Juvarra by projecting a parade fenced by the blocks of Sant'Ignazio and Santa Croce: the intervention saw the demolition of the pre-existent medieval houses and the reconstruction of new buildings for rent.

The new parade is fenced by two buildings with several workshops to confirm the commercial destination of the area, still nowadays stated by the presence of the most important city market.

The square plan was enlarged in the 19th century when the porticoed buildings of six bays were extended on a project by Gaetano Lombardi in 1819.
The octagonal square, now called della Repubblica, according to a plan started in the first years of the Restoration, would find its completion with the construction of the food and fish markets, and of the later metallic roofing for the covered market (1916).

Via Milano, which begins from piazza della Repubblica until via Garibaldi, in the first stretch maintains its architectonical uniformity of the façade of the buildings of the square, although without porticoes.