Palazzo Barolo (Barolo Palace), Turin

Palazzo Barolo (Barolo Palace) is a patrician residence in Turin. It is the headquarters of the Opera Barolo which, according to the will of the Marquise Giulia, has the task of continuing the activities of human promotion and social service that Giulia and her husband Tancredi had started.

The palace was built at the end of the seventeenth century by Gian Francesco Baroncelli as a renovation of the house already owned here by Count Ottavio Provana di Druento, "first squire" and "grand wardrobe" of Vittorio Amedeo II of Savoy.

The only daughter of Count Ottavio, Elena Matilde, lived in the palace with her husband, Marquis Gabriele Falletti di Barolo who, with the three children born in the marriage, left the palace and his wife when his father-in-law did not assign his daughter the rich dowry already promised at the time of marriage. At 26, Elena Matilde committed suicide by jumping from her bedroom window.

In 1727 it was inherited by Ottavio Giuseppe, eldest son of Elena and Gabriele Falletti di Barolo, who around the middle of the eighteenth century entrusted the modification to Benedetto Alfieri to adapt it to the rococo taste. The palace was the residence of the Falletti family up to the spouses Tancredi (died in 1838) and Giulia di Barolo (died in 1864), with whom the family died out. They left the palace to the Opera Pia Barolo foundation.

In 1906 the south side of the building was demolished to widen and straighten the current Via Corte d'Appello: the trace of the original perimeter of the building can still be seen in the road pavement. Following the demolitions, a terrace was built in place of a pre-existing courtyard and the Green Room was rebuilt , which contains a fresco by Luigi Morgari representing The Wedding of Peleus and Thetis .

Guest of the Marquis Falletti after the publication of My prisons , the writer Silvio Pellico stayed in the palace for many years , whose room is part of the tour of the Palazzo museum. Pellico helped Giulia di Barolo in her works of charity, also teaching in the schools founded by the marquise.

The staircase occupies the central space of the building in place of the traditional location on the side as in the typical seventeenth-century noble palaces. The decorative arrangements on the ground floor and some rooms on the main floor date back to the end of the 17th century ; the stuccos are by Pietro Somasso , the canvases by Francesco Trevisani and the frescoes by Legnani.