Gargoyles in Turin

Despite being born and raised in Turin only recently I started to know it well.
Do not just walk around you have also to move your eyes upward.
The historic center of Turin, in particular the area occupied by banks in Via Alfieri, Via XX Settembre, Piazza San Carlo, Palazzo Lascaris is full of strange presences.
Gargoyles, monsters, devils, they are numerous, and it is disturbing to think that we have gone to the very same way for years without ever notice them.
Then, finally, you will see them. Gargoyles have always been there.

Giovanni Battista Borra about half of the 1700s performed a series of some buildings in Turin, not all of them well documented, including the famous Palazzo Perrone di San Martino, today Cassa di Risparmio, 7 Via Alfieri in Turin, with its magnificent heavy gate sustained by two frightening creatures.

Palazzo Lascaris was built in Turin between 1663 and 1665 by Domenico Bernardi designed by Amedeo di Castellamonte, was bought in 1803 by the Lascaris family which in 1975 sold it to the Piedmont Region and became the house for the Regional Council.

Posted on May 11, 2011

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