Via Po Torino

Palazzo degli Stemmi stands between via Rossini and via Montebello. Once called the Charity Hospice, inaugurated in 1717 to shelter the poorer inhabitants of Turin, after renovating older seventeenth-century buildings, the palace was built thanks to many benefactors. Their families are commemorated with 27 coats of arms placed on the façade of the front arcade of the palace. Since the second half of the nineteenth century the arcades host a pharmacy, that still maintains its original furniture. In 1896, a cinema projected the first films by the Lumière brothers. In 1984, during long and complicated renovation works, the palace collapsed, leaving only the façade and its coats of arms intact. The majority of the palace new rooms are used as a university residence.