San Carlo Borromeo, Turin

Elegant made church, excellent Baptistry house.

One of the best squares in Turin, usually most of the events are celebrated here. There are many cafe, bars and restaurents in the Piazza San Carlo. You can reach if you are coming from Porta Nuova, by following Via Roma.

These two churches are cute from the outside (they got bombed in WWII :o), but nothing especial in the inside

They are two very beautiful churches to visit where inside you will find beautiful sculptures and very beautiful works of art. Also in these churches there is the hand of juvarra and the baroque style is exceptional. In the back of the churches there are 2 huge statues

With the southern enlargement of Turin, the Nuova district was opened and the Piazza Reale (now Piazza San Carlo) was traced in 1637, as a courtly space of welding between the ancient nucleus and the new urban expansion. In accordance with the French model of the places royales, this square was built with uniform arcaded palaces and closed by the presence of two twin churches on the south front, intended for religious orders for ducal protection. Before the interventions of the thirties of the twentieth century, the churches of San Carlo and Santa Cristina framed the entrance to the southern part of the Contrada Nova castellamontiana, now via Roma, as scenographic scenes integrated with the architecture of the buildings. The area of ​​the church of San Carlo was ceded by Duke Carlo Emanuele I of Savoy to the Discalced Augustinians. On September 1, 1619, the foundation stone was laid and construction proceeded briskly so that the following year, being partially built, it began to be officiated. The church was dedicated to Carlo Borromeo (canonized on August 21, 1610), at the behest of Carlo Emanuele I, particularly linked to this bishop since his first pilgrimage to Turin to venerate the Shroud. In those years the new church stood isolated on a plateau, separated from the old city by the remains of the ramparts and ditches dug to extract the clay. Although the church was opened for worship shortly after its foundation, it took many decades to complete its decoration. The interior has a single nave with two bays, with four side chapels and a rectangular presbytery with a barrel vault. In 1653 the regent Cristina of France entrusted Bernardino Quadri with the execution of the high altar and the stucco decoration of the same altar and choir, based on a design by Amedeo di Castellamonte. In the center was placed the painting of San Carlo in adoration of the Shroud, of Giacomo and Giovanni Andrea Casella. In the niches on the back wall are the two statues of a Lugano sculptor depicting Faith and Charity; on the sides two paintings by Giovanni Paolo Recchi representing San Carlo visiting the dying Carlo Emanuele in Vercelli and San Carlo welcomed by the Dukes of Savoy. The side chapels were also built: in the second on the left, designed by Amedeo di Castellamonte, we admire the statue of the Madonna della Pace by Tommaso Carlone and in the first the Mausoleum of Francesco Maria Broglia, commissioner of the same and general lieutenant of the French troops, work by Tommaso Carlone.In the sacristy there is the altar with nineteenth-century canvas depicting the Servites and the Virgin, St. Theobaldus who intercedes with the Virgin by Vittorio Amedeo Rapous, St. Joseph with the Child who hits with a dart St. Augustine, work by Charles- Claude Dauphin. In 1834, for the interest of the King and the Municipality, a competition was organized for the arrangement of the facade (which had remained rustic until then), won by the architect Ferdinando Caronesi, who followed - simplifying them - the lines of the Juvarrian one of Santa Cristina; the facade was therefore erected in two orders and the entrance portal was decorated with a bas-relief depicting Emanuele Filiberto communicated by Cardinal Carlo Borromeo; on the attic statues of San Francesco di Sales and Blessed Bonifacio of Savoy, with oval framed by a neoclassical rectangular frame. In 1837 Carlo Alberto ceded the convent to the Servi di Maria, later replaced by the seculars, who in 1863 embellished and enlarged the church according to a design by Carlo Ceppi. The main altar and the sacristy were converted into a lateral choir, while Rodolfo Morgari painted the vault and upper walls with Byzantine ornaments. In these forms, the temple was reconsecrated on June 14, 1866. In 1935 with the remaking of the second stretch of via Roma, the left side, the apse and part of the right side were covered with marble.