Casa Scaccabarozzi is commonly known to Turin residents as Fetta di polenta and in the past was also known as "Casa luna" and "la spada." This building represents one of the most daring and interesting constructions for civilian housing use built during the urban and hygienic redevelopment of the Vanchiglia area, arranged by the Turin municipal administration between the 1930s and 1940s.This building, designed by Alessandro Antonelli, was named after the architect’s wife, Francesca Scaccabarozzi, a noblewoman originally from Cremona, who lived in this building for a short time.A real construction challenge: trapezoidal-triangular in shape, the nine-story building, two of which are underground, is 24 meters high in total.The first three floors were built in 1840, but construction was completed with the remaining floors only in 1881.At its narrowest part, the building is less than 5 meters thick.The facade is punctuated by barely projecting windows (like minute oriel windows), interspersed with light pilasters; the cornice on the top level supports the balconies, as it was not possible to weigh down the supporting structure with additional materials, modillions or friezes. Painted yellow on the exterior, with the interiors of the pilasters decorated in crimson red, the Slice of Polenta remains a masterful proof of Alessandro Antonelli’s innovative and daring construction technique, which led him to create increasingly innovative, lofty and transcendent works, such as the Dome of San Gaudenzio in Novara (whose spire was completed in 1877) as well as the aforementioned and celebrated Mole, to which Antonelli’s name, worldwide, has remained forever linked.
