Ospedale Molinette

The Ospedale Molinette, officially the Ospedale San Giovanni Battista, is the main hospital of Turin: a pavilion complex opened in 1935 on corso Bramante, on the left bank of the Po. It is the direct heir of the Ospedale maggiore di San Giovanni Battista e della Città di Torino, born in the Middle Ages next to the Cathedral, and today it is part of the hospital-university trust Città della Salute e della Scienza di Torino.^[1] Piedmont's organ transplant programme began in its operating theatres.

From the Cathedral bell tower to via Giolitti

According to tradition, a canon of the cathedral picked up a dying man from the street and had him taken into a room in the bell tower of the church of San Giovanni: from that act the city's first hospital is said to have been born.^[1] A document of 13 March 1228 refers to it as the «Hospitale del Domo»; in 1306 the seat was moved towards the towers of the Porta Palatina, and from 1460 the institution has been known as the Ospedale di San Giovanni.^[2] In 1540-41 the City joined the Chapter of canons by donating to the hospital the assets of twelve confraternities and more than a hundred houses; on 12 January 1578 the institution took the official name Ospedale maggiore di San Giovanni Battista e della Città di Torino, which it still holds.^[2] Management remained for a long time with the canons of the cathedral, under the authority of the bishop; the 1630 plague put the institution into crisis and forced the Chapter to ask the City for help.^[1]

In 1680 Count Amedeo di Castellamonte designed the new seat on what is now via Giolitti: a Greek-cross plan on two floors, with the altar visible from every ward and four arcaded courtyards. The works took eight years and cost a million lire.^[1] In 1832 king Carlo Alberto signed the hospital's regulations; from 1836 care was entrusted to the Figlie della Carità di San Vincenzo de' Paoli, who served there for more than 130 years.^[1] The seventeenth-century building, today known as «San Giovanni Antica Sede», preserves its original structure.^[1]

The «new Policlinico»

Already at the start of the twentieth century the old seat was no longer sufficient. The plan for a new hospital was discussed in the city council from 1903.^[3] In 1914 mayor Teofilo Rossi di Montelera, in the report on his term of office, placed it in the southern part of the city, near the future Politecnico:^[4]

«Near the future Politecnico the new Hospitals will rise, designed for the night side of Corso Spezia, with their eastern front laid out along Corso Galileo Galilei, between the aforesaid Corso Spezia and Corso Piemonte»

On 21 July 1928 the agreement was signed for the new «hospital city» along the Po, in the area of the old mills: the popular name Molinette comes from a small mill called the Mulinetta.^[1] The design was signed by the engineers Eugenio Mollino (1873-1953) and Michele Bongioanni: nineteen pavilions two to four storeys high, linked by glazed galleries on two levels, in load-bearing masonry with reinforced-concrete floors, on an area of about 139,000 square metres.^[3]

The 1935 inauguration

King Vittorio Emanuele III inaugurated the hospital on 9 November 1935; the blessing was given by Cardinal Maurilio Fossati.^[2] The Fondazione Ricerca Molinette instead places the ceremony on 13 November and recalls that Mussolini declined the invitation.^[5] The work had cost 71 million lire: 35 from the City, 21 from the government, 10 from the Abegg family and 5 from the hospital itself for furnishings and equipment.^[1] At its opening it had 1,600 beds, four medical and four surgical divisions, the university clinics, an institute of pathological anatomy, radiology, a church, a boarding school for nurses, kitchens and a thermoelectric plant; the complex also housed the Ospedale San Lazzaro with its dermatology clinic.^[1]

The bombs of the Second World War

Its proximity to the FIAT plants at Lingotto, to RIV and to the railway line, all targets for bombers, came at a cost.^[1] The Molinette was hit five times: on 13 and 17 August 1943 by night raids of the RAF with large-calibre bombs, and on 8 November and 1 December 1943 and 3 January 1944 by daytime carpet bombing by the United States air force, which partly destroyed the pavilions and badly damaged roofs and systems.^[3] The hospital remained usable only by half, and an air-raid shelter was dug under the courtyard on corso Bramante.^[1] Among the victims of the bombings is remembered Sister Santina, of the Figlie della Carità, who refused to abandon a patient.^[6]

The transplant years

Piedmont's transplant programme started at the Molinette with the first kidney transplant, on 7 November 1981; the first heart transplant followed on 3 April 1990, the first liver transplant on 10 October of that same year, then lung (5 September 1993) and pancreas (18 August 1999).^[7] The liver transplant centre, directed by Mauro Salizzoni, passed 3,000 operations on 17 July 2017.^[8] On that occasion the rector of the Università di Torino, Gianmaria Ajani, commented: «The number is certainly significant, and crossing the three-thousand-transplant mark has its own symbolic meaning, but the most important thing is quality, which is achieved and maintained only with ongoing support for research». ^[8] In November 2023 the centre, founded by Salizzoni, who led it for 28 years, and directed since 2018 by Renato Romagnoli, reached 4,000 transplants, a record in Italy and in Europe.^[9]

Today and the Parco della Salute

In 2012 the Azienda ospedaliero-universitaria Città della Salute e della Scienza was created,^[10] bringing together the Molinette (with the Dermatologico San Lazzaro and the San Giovanni Antica Sede), the CTO, the Ospedale infantile Regina Margherita and the Sant'Anna.^[11] In 2021 they had 1,481 ordinary beds and 161 day-hospital beds.^[6] Their future, however, lies elsewhere: in April 2025 the contract was signed with the grouping formed by Consorzio Sis and Abp Nocivelli for the Parco della Salute, which will rise between corso Settembrini and corso Spezia and will house the Molinette and the CTO. The total cost is 610.9 million euros, covered by the State, by the Piedmont Region and by the concession holder; building work is expected to start in 2026 and handover is set for 2031.^[12]

Related articles: Città della Salute e della Scienza di Torino, Robot-assisted Urological Surgery at Molinette (September 2026)

Robotic surgery in urology

In September 2026 the hospital carries out about 250 urological operations a year with the support of a surgical robot, to cut waiting lists.^[13]

A new 3 Tesla MRI scanner (October 2026)

In October 2026 the Ospedale Molinette, together with Città della Salute e della Scienza di Torino and the Università degli Studi di Torino, inaugurates a 3 Tesla MRI scanner costing 1.6 million euros, which will cut the time needed for many diagnostic scans by up to 50%.

Timeline

• 5 October 2026 — The Turin public prosecutor's office opens an investigation for manslaughter into the death of Raffaele Miele, 36, who died on 1 October at the Molinette after a heart transplant, and orders an autopsy as a non-repeatable technical assessment at the family's request. la Repubblica Torino ANSA Piemonte
• 21 October 2026 — At the Ospedale Molinette in Turin, Città della Salute and the Università di Torino inaugurate a 3 Tesla MRI scanner costing 1.6 million euros, which will cut the time needed for many diagnostic scans by up to 50%. Quotidiano Piemontese TorinoOggi

Sources

1. A.O.U. Citta della Salute e della Scienza di Torino - Storia Molinette, Dermatologico San Lazzaro, San Giovanni Antica Sede — A.O.U. Città della Salute e della Scienza di Torino
2. La Voce e il Tempo
3. Ospedale di San Giovanni Battista e della Città di Torino - Le Molinette — MuseoTorino
4. Piemonteis — 7 April 2020
5. Fondazione Ricerca Molinette
6. Storia dell'ospedale Le Molinette di Torino — Mole24, 17 August 2021
7. Città della Salute di Torino. Raggiunti gli 8mila trapianti che fanno del Piemonte la prima regione in Italia — Quotidiano Sanità
8. Torino Oggi — 17 July 2017
9. 4.000 trapianti di fegato, l’ospedale Molinette sale sulla vetta d’Europa — insalutenews.it, 24 November 2023
10. Dalle stanze del campanile alla cittadella della medicina: la lunga storia delle Molinette di Torino — Quotidiano Piemontese
11. A.O.U. Citta della Salute e della Scienza di Torino - Presentazione: Città della Salute e della Scienza — A.O.U. Città della Salute e della Scienza di Torino
12. Parco della Salute a Torino: firmato il contratto, conclusione entro il 2031 — Torino Free, 26 April 2025
13. Molinette, 250 interventi l’anno con il robot per ridurre le liste d’attesa in urologia — La Stampa, 27 September 2026
14. Ospedale Molinette di Torino, ecco la nuova risonanza magnetica 3 Tesla: esami più veloci del 50% — Quotidiano Piemontese, 21 October 2026
15. Una Tesla 3 per studiare e curare il cervello: le Molinette celebrano la loro "fuoriserie" — TorinoOggi, 21 October 2026
16. All'ospedale Molinette una nuova risonanza magnetica 3 Tesla — ANSA Piemonte, 21 October 2026