The Torinese are accustomed to
absolutism. From 1574 Turin was
the seat of the Savoy dukes, who
persecuted Piemonte's Protestants
and Jews, censored the press and
placed education of the nobles in
the extreme hands of the Jesuits.
The Savoys gained a royal title in
1713, and a few years later
acquired Sardinia, which whetted
their appetite for more territory.
After more than a century of
military and diplomatic wrangling
with foreign powers, the second
monarch, Carlo Emanuele III (who
promised to "eat Italy like
an artichoke"), teamed up
with the liberal politician of the
Risorgimento, Cavour, who used the
royal family to lend credibility
to the Unification movement. In
1860 Garibaldi handed over Sicily
and southern Italy to Vittorio
Emanuele, and though it was to
take a further ten years for him
to seize the heart of the
artichoke - Rome - he was declared
king of Italy.
The capital was moved to Rome
in 1870, leaving Turin in the
hands of the Piemontese nobility.
It became a provincial backwater
where a tenth of the 200,000
population worked as domestic
servants, with a centre decked out
in elaborate finery, its cafés -
decorated with chandeliers, carved
wood, frescoes and gilt - only
slightly less ostentatious than
the rooms of the Savoy palaces.
World War I brought plenty of
work, but also brought food
shortages and, in 1917, street
riots which spread throughout the
north, establishing Turin as a
centre of labour activism. Gramsci
led occupations of the Fiat
factory here, going on to found
the Communist Party.
By the Fifties Turin's
population had soared to 700,000,
the increase mainly made up of
migrant workers from the poor
south, who were housed in shanty
towns outside the city and shunned
as peasants by the Torinese.
Blocks of flats were eventually
built for the workers - the bleak
Mirafiori housing estates - and by
the Sixties Fiat was employing
130,000 workers, with a further
half million dependent on the
company in some way. Not
surprisingly, Turin became known
as Fiatville. Today there are
fewer people involved in the
industry, and Fiat's famous
Lingotto factory has been turned
into a conference centre and
performance space, yet the gap
left behind has been filled by
some of the biggest names from
other industries, especially those
belonging to the worlds of
textiles and fashion (Armani,
Valentino, Cerruti and Ungaro),
publishing (Einandi and UTET), and
banking; the Banca Popolare di
Novara is the most important
co-operative bank in Europe.
