Piazza Carlo Alberto (Carlo Alberto Square), Turin

Piazza Carlo Alberto (Carlo Alberto Square) is one of the historic pedestrianized squares in the center of Turin. It takes its name from the king of Sardinia Carlo Alberto di Savoia, son of Carlo Emanuele di Savoia-Carignano, whose family owned the palace of the same name, whose nineteenth-century facade on the back, compared to the main and older one by Guarini on the adjacent piazza Carignano, is presented right on this square.

It stands where the internal gardens of the imposing Baroque building designed by Guarino Guarini once extended , which were connected to the opposite building of the stables by means of boundary walls. The area was reorganized between 1842 and 1859demolishing the walls and giving rise to the square.

On the south side of the square stands the eighteenth-century Palazzo Campana , the current university seat of the Mathematics department. Throughout the Fascist era, it was the headquarters of the provincial federation of the National Fascist Party and the Duce overlooked the small balcony on the side of the square during his official visits to the city. On 26 July 1943 it was the scene of violent clashes and was partially set on fire.

The equestrian statue of Carlo Alberto, located in front of the facade of Palazzo Carignano, was placed in 1861 by Carlo Marochetti . The statue looks towards the nineteenth-century entrance to the building, with its back to the library and brandishing a sword in the air. The statues at the base are four female allegorical figures (martyrdom, freedom, civil equality and of the Statute ) and four soldiers representing the corps of the Royal Sardinian Army (Artillery, Cavalry, Grenadiers and Bersaglieri ). The four bas-reliefs represent the battle of Goito, thebattle of Santa Lucia, the abdication and death in Oporto of Carlo Alberto.

It was already thought to create a monument to the first king Carignano , in 1847 , an idea promoted by numerous Piedmontese politicians, including Giuseppe Pomba , who in a document published on 5 January 1848 proposed, among other things, to create an arena, a triumphal arch or obelisk. The arrangement of the monument itself was uncertain between the Piazzetta Reale and Porta Nuova.

With the death of the sovereign in 1849, the creation of a memory of the same became an initiative of the state, as established by the minister Pietro Paleocapa. Projects to arrange an equestrian statue in the garden area of Palazzo Carignano were proposed by Gabriele Capello and Roberto d'Azeglio: it was Carlo Marocchetti who, however, created the work, which was inaugurated on 21 July 1861 after numerous renovations and much controversy.