Piazza Vittorio Veneto
The great arcaded square between via Po and the river, designed by Giuseppe Frizzi and completed in 1825, which conceals a drop of more than seven metres.
Piazza Vittorio Veneto, known to Turinese simply as "piazza Vittorio", is the great arcaded square that closes off via Po and opens onto the river, facing the bridge that leads to the church of the Gran Madre di Dio and the hill beyond. With a surface area of 39,960 square metres it is not the largest square in Turin — that record belongs to piazza della Repubblica, at 51,300 — but it is remembered as the largest arcaded square in Europe.[1] Designed by Giuseppe Frizzi and completed in 1825, it is at once an exercise in engineering the ground beneath it, a stage for the city's festivities, and one of the hubs of Turin's nightlife.
From the bank of the Po to the Napoleonic plan
Until the early nineteenth century the site was little more than a suburban riverbank. It was the years of French rule that changed it: by order of Napoleon the city walls were torn down, and a 1808 plan envisaged a semicircular, tree-lined esplanade here, closed off by arcades.[2][3] Of that design the only part actually carried out was the bridge over the Po between what is now the square and piazza Gran Madre;[2] it was built between 1807 and 1811 to a design by the engineer Claude Joseph La Ramée Pertinchamp, and the rubble of the demolished old walls was used for its foundations.[3] It is the bridge that today bears the name of Vittorio Emanuele I.[4]
Frizzi's design and the hidden slope
With the Restoration and the return to Turin of Vittorio Emanuele I of Savoy, the city resumed its growth toward the Po. The entry on "Turin" in the Enciclopedia Italiana (1937) places the building of the "grand square (300 × 100 m)" under the reigns of Vittorio Emanuele I, Carlo Felice and Carlo Alberto, together with the blocks toward corso San Maurizio.[2] The commission went to the architect Giuseppe Frizzi, who drew up the design in 1817 and saw the square finished in 1825.[1]
The main problem was the ground itself: between the mouth of via Po and the bridge the terrain drops by 7.19 metres.[1] Frizzi did not level it, he concealed it. He opened cross streets that break up the sequence of buildings into separate stretches, so that the roofline would not betray the slope; he brought some façades forward to create the illusion that the buildings share the same height; he tied the blocks together with terraces at the main floor that keep the square's lateral cornice continuous.[5] The slope also made the space well suited to assemblies and military parades, which gained in scenic effect from it.[1][5]
The name
The square was born as piazza Vittorio Emanuele I, in honour of the king of the Restoration. Its current name was adopted after the First World War, to commemorate the Italian victory at Vittorio Veneto in 1918; everyday usage has nonetheless kept the short form "piazza Vittorio", which suits both names equally well.[1][2]
Carnival and the fairground rides
For roughly a century piazza Vittorio was the heart of Turin's carnival. Stalls selling sweets and spun sugar were set up around the square and the cafés were decked out for the occasion; this is where the masked figures gathered — chiefly Gianduja and Giacometta, but also Pulcinella, Arlecchino and Brighella — and from here the allegorical floats set off for piazza Castello, where the festivities closed with the burning of the "Babaciu" effigy.[6][7] As the procession passed, according to one account, confetti paper rained down from the balconies of via Po;[6] according to another, what was thrown was mostly sugared almonds and chocolates rather than confetti.[7] Over time the fairground rides arrived: bumper cars, shooting galleries, circus attractions, and from 1967 a Ferris wheel and roller coasters taller than the buildings around them.[6][7]
The tradition was broken off in 1986. According to one account it was an order of the prefect Luigi Sparano that banned the use of the square for the funfair;[6] according to another it was the city administration that moved the rides elsewhere for safety reasons, first to piazza d'Armi, then to the Ruffini grounds and finally to the Pellerina park, amid protests from many residents.[7]
The river, the Murazzi and the festivities
From the far end of the square, steps lead down to the Murazzi, the arcades running along the Po. In September 2017, on the initiative of city councillors Fabrizio Ricca and Roberto Carbonero, the stretch north of the bridge was named after Fred Buscaglione and the stretch south of it after Gipo Farassino, in a ceremony held in piazza Vittorio itself; the speaker of the city council, Fabio Versaci, said of Buscaglione that "he was a shooting star in the firmament of Italian song and style, but the trail of his passage has not yet gone out".[4]
Today the square is the city's main venue for large open-air events, and its capacity is strictly regulated: for the "Night Experience" of the Saint John's feast on 24 June 2019, a show with 302 lit-up drones, the City set, together with the prefecture and the police headquarters, a limit of 38,000 people, 21 monitored access points and a ban on glass bottles and cans.[8] For Saint John's feast in 2026 attendance was close to 50,000: Ensi and Willie Peyote performed from four balconies overlooking the square, and the fireworks were set to a soundtrack by the composer Krano ranging from Buscaglione to Negazione, from Ennio Morricone to Antonello Venditti.[9]
In 2025 the square became the new home of CioccolaTò, the artisan chocolate festival, with some fifty exhibitors. Opening it on 27 February 2025, mayor Stefano Lo Russo declared: "Today we are opening CioccolaTò, which in this edition comes in an entirely renewed form, in its location, its dates and its layout."[10]
Arcades and upkeep
The colonnade is also the square's most exposed feature. On 15 December 2025 the municipal company Amiat began removing graffiti from the arcades, as a foretaste of the city-centre cleaning plan scheduled for 2026 under the "Torino Cambia" programme.[11] According to the councillor for the environment, Chiara Foglietta, the colonnade "has been the target of graffiti vandalism, and with this work we will restore its dignity, in coordination with the Soprintendenza".[11]
Pages linking here
Related articles: Fred Buscaglione
Sources
- Mole24 — 3 June 2016
- Treccani, Enciclopedia Italiana —
- Mole24 — 25 July 2018
- CittAgorà (Consiglio comunale di Torino) — 28 September 2017
- Mole24 — 17 August 2018
- Mole24 — 20 February 2015
- Mole24 — 18 February 2020
- TorinoClick (Città di Torino) — 21 June 2019
- TorinoClick (Città di Torino) — 25 June 2026
- TorinoClick (Città di Torino) — 27 February 2025
- TorinoClick (Città di Torino) — 16 December 2025