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Porta Palazzo

Piazza della Repubblica and its open-air market, born in 1835 out of a cholera epidemic and considered the largest in Europe.

Image from a publication by Il Torinese
From a publication by Il Torinese, 2026-09-18

Porta Palazzo is the name Turinese use for piazza della Repubblica and the great market that occupies it, at the northern end of the historic centre of Turin, between the Quadrilatero Romano and the Balon of Borgo Dora. It is considered the largest open-air market in Europe, and for nearly two centuries it has been the place where the city does its shopping and welcomes those who arrive from elsewhere — first from the Piedmontese valleys, then from the South, and finally from half the world[1]. Many also call it «Porta Pila»[1].

The city's northern gate

The name recalls a vanished gateway. The Roman city opened to the north with the Porta Palatina; between 1699 and 1701 Duke Vittorio Amedeo II had the northern walls altered and a small opening made alongside the Porta Palatina: the new gate, called the gate of San Michele, corresponding to today's via Milano, faced piazza delle Erbe, today's piazza Palazzo di Città[1]. In 1729 Filippo Juvarra applied to the northern entrance the solution already used at Porta Susina: at the mouth of today's via Milano he built the two large blocks of Santa Croce and Sant'Ignazio, owned by the Ordine Mauriziano and the City[2]. The Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani dates the layout of the Porta Palazzo district to between 1729 and 1732, achieved by straightening the pre-existing street axis[3]. Juvarra had also been entrusted with a triumphal arch for the capital's northern entrance; his designs called for a monumental gateway and a parade ground enclosed by two blocks, those of Santa Croce and Sant'Ignazio, still visible today[1].

The nineteenth-century octagon

Today's square was born from the demolition of the fortifications ordered in the Napoleonic era. After the Savoy restoration in 1814 the land left by the demolished walls was sold off and built up right in the area that became piazza Emanuele Filiberto, the name the square carried until it became piazza della Repubblica[4]. The architect Gaetano Lombardi enlarged Juvarra's small square into a great octagonal space of more than fifty thousand square metres, a new point of connection between the city and the Balon district outside the walls[1].

A market born of cholera

The market arrived there for health reasons. On 23 August 1835 the first case of cholera was recorded in Turin; Carlo Alberto set up a health commission led by the vicar, and on 29 August a vicarial notice moved the market from the squares of delle Erbe (today piazza Palazzo di Città) and del Corpus Domini, both too small, to the new piazza Emanuele Filiberto[5]. Among the measures listed by the vicar was the order[5]

«that rubbish dumps be moved away from the city, that brothels where prostitutes ply their trade be kept under watch, that the market be moved»

Vicarial notice, Turin, 1835

Meat slaughtering and fish processing were also moved out of the built-up area[1]. Two sheds for foodstuffs went up on the square right away, along with rows of stalls for fabrics, haberdashery and crockery[5]; the fish pavilion, in the southern part, dates from the years immediately afterwards, 1836 according to one account and 1837 according to another[5][6]. Beneath the square ice-houses were dug out, reached by cart: spiral structures on four levels where snow was gathered in winter and, in mild winters, ice was brought in from Moncenisio. The system remained in use until the 1960s[1][5].

The Tettoia dell'Orologio and the Balon

In 1916, in the midst of the war, the Tettoia dell'Orologio — the «Clock Shed» — was unveiled in the north-east corner, the great iron-and-glass structure that has remained the symbol of the square: while Turin's steelworks were busy supplying the army, it was built by a small workshop in Borgo Dora[1][5]. Beyond the square, between via Borgo Dora, via Lanino, via Mameli and via Canale Molassi, the Balon, the Saturday flea market, has been held since 1857; since 1985 the second Sunday of the month has become the Gran Balon[7]. The neighbourhood had an identity of its own: between 1902 and 1907, in summer, the Balon elected a «Market Queen» chosen among the traders' daughters, and the first, Margherita Rosso, had evening galas held in her honour at the Teatro Vittorio Emanuele[8].

From farmers to migrants

In the nineteenth century and the early twentieth, farmers from the Piedmontese valleys brought their goods to the stalls, with the golden humpbacked tench of the Poirino plateau and trout from the alpine lakes. In the postwar years internal migration brought the flavours of Veneto, Puglia and Sardinia, and the market became a meeting point for fellow villagers; later, new waves of migration made it today's multi-ethnic crossroads[1]. From the 1970s the area went through decline and a bad reputation, and its recovery began with the 2006 Olympics[1]. Cinema has used it as a backdrop for a harder-edged Turin: in Italia a mano armata (1976) the camera passes through it as «an "obligatory" symbol»[9]. And it has remained the market where one comes to be seen: in October 2019 Raffaella Carrà went shopping there with Luciana Littizzetto, in Turin to record an episode of her show[10].

The PalaFuksas and the Mercato Centrale

In 1963 a clothing pavilion was built next to the Tettoia dell'Orologio, demolished in 2005[1][5]. In its place, to a design by Massimiliano Fuksas chosen through a public competition in 1998, rose a building clad in 46,500 glass fins, opened in March 2011 as the Centro Palatino, with 34 shops, an underground car park with 110 spaces and a restaurant planned for the top floor with a view of the Mole Antonelliana[11]. During construction, in 2005, the last of the old ice-houses re-emerged from the underground car park and can be visited today[1]. In 2019 the PalaFuksas took in the Mercato Centrale[5], with food stalls such as those for Neapolitan sfogliatella, organic vegetables, truffles and risotto; in 2020 a space for the RePoPP project was born there, where unsold stallholders' goods are collected for free, opened in the presence of mayor Chiara Appendino[12].

Regeneration

Since 2025 the market has been renovated: the old wood-and-iron stalls have been replaced with aluminium ones, and new paving, lighting and panels on the square's history have arrived[13]. The Comune has declared an investment of 2.5 million euros in European PNRR funds in the north-east (producers and household goods) and south-east (fruit and vegetables) quadrants[14]. Presenting the Festival di Porta Palazzo in June 2026, for the 110th anniversary of the Tettoia dell'Orologio, the councillor for commerce Paolo Chiavarino described the market as[14]

«a living space, always a crossroads of cultures, a setting for exchange and relationships, a symbol of integration achieved through work»

At the festival's closing evening, with the work «Amare le differenze» ("Loving differences") by Michelangelo Pistoletto, the directors of the Museo del Risorgimento and of the MAO held a conversation[14]. For the former fish market a two-million-euro restoration tender had gone unanswered three times[13]; closed since 2021, the pavilion is reopening for events and culture with about 138,000 euros of works, keeping the old fish-stall signs and the white-and-blue tiles, and its first event is tied to the Salone Off, the citywide programme that accompanies the Salone del Libro[6]. A social-housing project is also under way on the square: the building on piazza della Repubblica is planned to include 20 flats for the elderly and family co-housing units[15].

Pages linking here

Related articles: Luciana Littizzetto

Sources

  1. Mole24 — 13 July 2021
  2. MuseoTorino
  3. Treccani, Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani
  4. MuseoTorino
  5. Mole24 — 29 August 2020
  6. Mole24 — 12 May 2026
  7. Mole24 — 18 August 2019
  8. Mole24 — 13 October 2015
  9. Mole24 — 22 January 2026
  10. Mole24 — 30 October 2019
  11. Mole24 — 13 January 2012
  12. Mole24 — 18 September 2020
  13. Mole24 — 12 March 2025
  14. Città di Torino, Torinoclick — 9 June 2026
  15. Città di Torino, Torinoclick — 27 May 2025

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