Torre Civica

Beside Cuneo's medieval town hall, the tower rises 52 metres and carries the city's ancient crest on the facade. Its bell chamber and balcony crown the tower above the bar-shaped old town, with views across the Langhe toward Monte Rosa.

Why it matters

The Torre Civica is Cuneo's civic emblem, set beside Piazza Galimberti and via Roma. It has served the commune since the medieval period: in 1240 the City Council was summoned by its civic bell. The main facade carries the city's crest, showing the Gesso and Stura streams around the town and recalling Cuneo's wedge-shaped site. Its bell chamber and balcony form a high viewpoint over the city's urban plan.

What to notice

The facade displays the municipal coat of arms, with the two rivers encircling the city. The bell chamber's balcony is ringed by white columns and overlooks Piazza Galimberti, the porticoes of via Roma, the old contrade, the plain, the Langhe hills and the Alps.

Context and history

The tower grew up with the commune, annexed to the ancient town hall whose civic business it overlooked: a record of 1240 shows the City Council convening "more solito" at the sound of the civic bell, a second, larger bell was hung beside the first in 1574, and the square base hid a windowless prison cell, reached by a trapdoor in its ceiling, until 1729, when the transfer of the jail allowed a ground-level entrance to be cut. Like the city it watched over, it passed through Cuneo's turbulent centuries of sieges and border warfare between Savoy and France: in 1627 bonfires lit on the tower for the eve of Saint John set the town hall ablaze and brought both bells crashing down, to be recast by the bell-founder Domenico Guliermont, come from Vercelli; in 1730 the neighbouring palace was completely rebuilt to designs of the celebrated Mondovì architect Francesco Gallo; and in 1775 the municipality moved across Via Roma into the former Jesuit college that remains its seat. In 1799 the French occupiers scraped the city's crest and its inscriptions of loyalty to the Savoys from the facade; the crest and the allegory of the city between the Gesso and the Stura were repainted in 1824 and redone in 1858 by the painter Gaetano Borgocaratti — the same hand as the Teatro Toselli curtain. The great bell rang for Cuneo's liberation in 1945, and the tower's present appearance is the result of restorations promoted for the eighth centenary of the city's legendary founding (1198-1998).