Description
The Fetta di Polenta ("Slice of Polenta"), officially Casa Scaccabarozzi, is one of the most curious buildings in Turin: a yellow house of nine floors, tall and extremely thin, on the corner of Corso San Maurizio and Via Giulia di Barolo, in the Vanchiglia district. On one side it is barely 54 centimeters wide, less than a door.
Its author is Alessandro Antonelli, the same man behind the Mole Antonelliana. Around 1840, for his work in the district, he was paid with a tiny, trapezoid-shaped plot of land. He could not buy the one next to it, so, perhaps as a bet, he made up in height what he lacked in width.
From a distance it is the yellow icon of the neighborhood: the thin trapezoid plan, the ocher color and the blade-like profile gave it the nickname all Turin residents use, because it looks like a slice of polenta. It measures about 16 meters on Via Giulia di Barolo and 4.35 meters on Corso San Maurizio.
The balconies and projecting windows are not just decoration: Antonelli made them jut out to gain space inside.
The main façades are eclectic, with pilasters carved in geometric reliefs and a cornice that recalls the first phase of the works, when the house ended at the fourth floor. The narrowest side, the 54-centimeter one, instead holds the shaft for flues and pipes.
On the Via Giulia di Barolo side, at the top, you can still see the pulley used for moving house: the stairs are so narrow that nothing bulky could be carried up. The opposite side, the one at the back, has not a single window.
The house was built in stages: the first four floors in 1840, then two more, and the last in 1881, as one more proof of technical skill. The official name comes from Antonelli's wife, Francesca Scaccabarozzi, a noblewoman from Cremona, to whom he gave it after winning the challenge.
Many said it would collapse. Antonelli, to answer them, went to live there with her for a few years. The house proved him right: it withstood the explosion of the Borgo Dora gunpowder factory in 1852, the 1887 earthquake and the bombs of the Second World War.
On the ground floor was the Caffè del Progresso, a historic haunt of Carbonari and revolutionaries. The Fetta di Polenta is a private residence, so you admire it from the outside, but it is precisely from outside that it makes the greatest impression.
Don't miss
• The 54-centimeter side.
• The balconies and projecting windows.
• The pulley at the top.
Did you know?
• Of the nine floors, two are underground: it is the deep foundations that keep the building stable.
• Niccolò Tommaseo stayed here in 1859.
Its author is Alessandro Antonelli, the same man behind the Mole Antonelliana. Around 1840, for his work in the district, he was paid with a tiny, trapezoid-shaped plot of land. He could not buy the one next to it, so, perhaps as a bet, he made up in height what he lacked in width.
From a distance it is the yellow icon of the neighborhood: the thin trapezoid plan, the ocher color and the blade-like profile gave it the nickname all Turin residents use, because it looks like a slice of polenta. It measures about 16 meters on Via Giulia di Barolo and 4.35 meters on Corso San Maurizio.
The balconies and projecting windows are not just decoration: Antonelli made them jut out to gain space inside.
The main façades are eclectic, with pilasters carved in geometric reliefs and a cornice that recalls the first phase of the works, when the house ended at the fourth floor. The narrowest side, the 54-centimeter one, instead holds the shaft for flues and pipes.
On the Via Giulia di Barolo side, at the top, you can still see the pulley used for moving house: the stairs are so narrow that nothing bulky could be carried up. The opposite side, the one at the back, has not a single window.
The house was built in stages: the first four floors in 1840, then two more, and the last in 1881, as one more proof of technical skill. The official name comes from Antonelli's wife, Francesca Scaccabarozzi, a noblewoman from Cremona, to whom he gave it after winning the challenge.
Many said it would collapse. Antonelli, to answer them, went to live there with her for a few years. The house proved him right: it withstood the explosion of the Borgo Dora gunpowder factory in 1852, the 1887 earthquake and the bombs of the Second World War.
On the ground floor was the Caffè del Progresso, a historic haunt of Carbonari and revolutionaries. The Fetta di Polenta is a private residence, so you admire it from the outside, but it is precisely from outside that it makes the greatest impression.
Don't miss
• The 54-centimeter side.
• The balconies and projecting windows.
• The pulley at the top.
Did you know?
• Of the nine floors, two are underground: it is the deep foundations that keep the building stable.
• Niccolò Tommaseo stayed here in 1859.