The "Barra di Ferro" Palace

The "Barra di Ferro" Palace bears this name because from the beginning of the 1800s until 1913 it was home of a hotel with the same name. This hotel hosted numerous famous guests including Vittorio Emanuele II, Cavour, Garibaldi, Umberto I, Crispi and Giovanni Giolitti.
The glory days of this hotel ended during the First World War. The structure was taken over by the armed forces and a part of it became a storage facility, while the remaining part was used as offices and housing. In the forties, the housing units, which had become small apartments, were used to house employees and their families and some officers of the army.
The "Barra di Ferro" Palace was the headquarters of the first group of a SAP (Patriotic Group of Action) in Cuneo. A SAP is different from GAP (Partisan Groups of Action) because SAP members maintained their job and place in the society whereas GAP members lived and worked "underground" or secretly.
SAP members were occupied with the production of anti-fascist materials, actions of espionage and sabotage. In the palace lived two families, the Azzalin and the Biancani. In their apartments and cellars, there were headquartered not only the command and the storage of ammunition belonging to the SAP but also the secret organization of the communist party and the meeting point of the Garibaldi dispatch riders.
The young SAP members were led by Dario Azzalin, who accepted the responsibility immediately when offered to him by his good friend Claudio Biancani, who was the responsible member of the Communist Party. The young anti-fascist was able to recruit many childhood friends and others from the same alley in only a short time.
The first demonstrations of SAP were acts of propaganda, by means of writings on walls and sticking of posters in the town which called the population to action and to join the battle against fascism. They also addressed soldiers , inviting them to desert the military service and join the partisans. The cuneese SAP had two secret print shops: one was hidden in the projection room of Cinema Lanteri, the other one in the warehouse of the transport company where Armando Azzalin, Dario's brother, worked.
It was in the courtyard of "The Barra di Ferro" Palace where the antifascist revolt started on 27th April 1945. On that very day, at 7.30 a.m. Dario Azzalin gathered his young fellows, gave them weapons, ammunition, and some hand grenades. At 9.00, the main door of the Palace was thrown wide open and the young SAP members brought havoc in Via Roma, yelling "Viva l'Italia!" and heading towards the Prefettura.
A tablet remembering these events is located near the front door of the "Barra di Ferro" Palace.