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Mayors of Turin

The heads of Turin's municipal administration: from the annual mayors of the 16th century to the single mayor of 1848, to the Fascist podestàs, up to direct election from 1993.

Image from the Città Nuova publication
From Città Nuova, 2011-05-17

The mayors of Turin are the heads of the municipal administration of the City of Turin. The title already appears in the 14th century; from the 16th century the city elected every year two or more mayors chosen among its notables, while from 1848 there has been a single mayor, first appointed by the king, then elected by the City Council and, from 1993, chosen directly by the citizens. The long list mirrors the phases of Turin's history: the Savoy capital, the loss of capital status, the Fascist ventennio, reconstruction, industrial growth and the transformation of recent decades.[1][2][3]

From consuls to two annual mayors

In the Middle Ages the records first mention consuls, then, at the end of the 13th century, a podestà; in the following century it was the chiavari who elected the Comune's two mayors, or procurators.[1] The modern system was born under Duke Emanuele Filiberto, who in 1562 set up a General Council of 62 members, called first savi, then councillors and finally decurions; a restricted board of 24 people, called the Credenza minore, elected two mayors, who before taking the oath had to obtain the prince's approval.[1] In 1564 three mayors were elected; in the following years there were usually two, sometimes three or four. The Council was originally reserved for nobles, but already in the 16th century the office was also held by merchants, such as the cloth trader Agostino Meschiatis in 1569, and in 1618 by the warehouse-keeper Giovanni Francesco Cuneo.[1][2]

With the French occupation the system was suspended: in 1801 the Decurionato gave way to a municipality led by a maire appointed by the Napoleonic government, the first of whom was Ignazio Laugier (1801-1805), followed by Giovanni Negro (1806-1814). With the Restoration, from 1814, the two annual mayors chosen among nobles and notables returned.[2]

The single mayor and the lost capital

The turning point came with the Statute granted by Carlo Alberto in March 1848. The new municipal law entrusted the choice of councillors to a restricted electorate, while the mayor, now a single figure, was appointed by the king by decree. The first was Luigi De Margherita, in office from 31 December 1848 to 7 April 1849.[2] He was followed by Carlo Pinchia, Giorgio Bellono (1850-1852) and the lawyer Giovanni Notta, mayor from 1853 to 1860 thanks to two royal decrees of confirmation, who had to deal with the 1853 grain shortage and the cholera epidemic of 1855-1856, which cost the city 1,402 lives.[3]

The most dramatic term was that of Emanuele Luserna di Rorà, appointed by royal decree on 26 December 1861. In September 1864 the Convention with France established the transfer of the capital away from Turin; the protests that followed, on 21 and 22 September, ended in bloodshed in Piazza Castello and Piazza San Carlo.[3][4] According to the reconstruction by historian Rosanna Roccia, Luserna di Rorà prepared a letter of resignation in February 1865 but never had it delivered to the prefect, and left office at the end of that year to the lawyer Filippo Galvagno.[4] During the years of the former capital's reconversion the Comune was led by Felice Rignon, mayor from 20 November 1870 to 31 December 1877 and again for shorter periods between 1895 and 1898, for a total of about ten years, also remembered for his philanthropic activity.[3]

From the liberal 20th century to the podestà

In the early 20th century the most recurring figure was Secondo Frola, mayor from 1903 to 1909 and again from 1917 to 1919; between the two terms Turin was governed by Teofilo Rossi (1909-1917) and, for a few months in 1917, by Leopoldo Usseglio.[5] In 1919 the city was entrusted to a commissioner, Filiberto Olgiati, and after mayor Riccardo Cattaneo (1920-1923) a long series of government commissioners began. Under the Fascist regime the elected office was replaced by the podestà, appointed by the government: the first was Paolo Thaon di Revel (1929-1935), followed by Ugo Sartirana, Cesare Giovara and Matteo Bonino, until 1943. During the German occupation and the Italian Social Republic, podestàs and commissioners continued to alternate.[5]

From the Liberation to 1993

After the Liberation the first mayor was the communist Giovanni Roveda, appointed by the National Liberation Committee. In the elections of 10 November 1946, 323,674 Turin citizens voted for an 80-member Council; the left won the majority, with the PCI at 33 percent, and the new mayor became Celeste Negarville, also a communist.[6][7] After Domenico Coggiola (1948-1951), in 1951 the Christian Democrats won and the Comune passed to Amedeo Peyron, who remained in office until 1962.[1] During Peyron's years the city approved its master plan, became the country's industrial capital and, in the words of mayor Piero Fassino at the 2015 commemoration, went "from 600,000 to 1,200,000 inhabitants"; his administration is also credited with the Caselle airport, the Martini hospital, the new headquarters of the GAM and the organisation of the centenary of Italian Unity in 1961.[7][8] Diego Novelli, communist mayor in the 1970s and 1980s, remembered him this way:[8]

"A person open to dialogue, willing to engage in debate, who did not see enemies from the outset, at most opponents."

Diego Novelli, message at the commemoration of Amedeo Peyron in the Sala Rossa, 2015

From 1962 came the centrist administration of Giovanni Carlo Anselmetti, who died on the eve of the 1964 elections, the centrist administration of Giuseppe Grosso and the Christian Democrats Andrea Guglielminetti and Giovanni Porcellana; in 1973 came the city's first socialist mayor, Guido Secreto, and from December 1973 to July 1975 the city was governed by professor Giovanni Picco, the last Christian Democrat mayor.[1][7] That opened the decade of left-wing administrations led by Diego Novelli, a journalist for l'Unità and a PCI militant, mayor from July 1975 to January 1985.[7][9] In 1983 a bribery scandal hit the Municipality and opened a crisis in the administration; there followed the socialists Giorgio Cardetti and Maria Magnani Noya, the first woman to lead the city (20 July 1987 - 30 July 1990), the liberal Valerio Zanone (1990-1991) and the republican Giovanna Cattaneo Incisa, in office from 11 February to 14 December 1992.[1][7][10] From December 1992 the Comune was run by the prefectural commissioner Riccardo Malpica.[6]

Direct election

Law no. 81 of 25 March 1993 removed from the Council the choice of mayor and handed it to the citizens, giving the mayor the power to appoint the councillors; the Council was reduced to 50 members (then 40 from 2011).[6][11] In the first direct vote, in June 1993, Diego Novelli obtained 36.01 percent and Valentino Castellani, a lecturer in electrical communications at the Politecnico, 20.27; the run-off on 20 June overturned the result, with Castellani elected at 57.30 percent against 42.70.[11][12] Castellani, a centre-left independent, was confirmed in 1997; from 2001 he was succeeded by Sergio Chiamparino, for two terms.[6][7][12] In May 2011 Fassino, former national secretary of the Ds, was elected in the first round with 56.66 percent of the vote.[13]

The cycle of centre-left mayors ended in June 2016, when Chiara Appendino of the Five Star Movement, who came second in the first round with 30.92 percent, won the run-off against the outgoing mayor Fassino with 54.56 percent.[14] She was the first woman directly elected by the people of Turin.[10]

Today

In the October 2021 elections Stefano Lo Russo, a geology lecturer at the Politecnico and leader of the Democratic Party group on the City Council, beat the centre-right candidate Paolo Damilano in the run-off with 59.23 percent against 40.77.[15][16] The City Council's newsletter counted him as the city's twenty-first mayor since 1946.[6] Commenting on his victory, Lo Russo listed among the new administration's tasks that of "bringing Turin's citizens back to trusting their administration."[15]

Pages linking here

Related articles: Chiara Appendino, Piero Fassino, Torino

Sources

  1. Atlante di Torino
  2. Associazione Amici della Fondazione Cavour
  3. Associazione Amici della Fondazione Cavour
  4. Torino 1864 (Rosanna Roccia)
  5. Torino Storia — 20 June 2016
  6. CittAgorà - Consiglio comunale di Torino — 19 October 2021
  7. MuseoTorino
  8. Città di Torino - Ufficio stampa — 30 November 2015
  9. Polo del '900
  10. MuseoTorino
  11. CittAgorà - Consiglio comunale di Torino — 21 August 2023
  12. Torino Strategica
  13. Città Nuova — 17 May 2011
  14. Il Post — 19 June 2016
  15. ANSA — 18 October 2021
  16. Il Post — 18 October 2021

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