At the edge of a park where a remnants of former Citadel of Turin can be found, an over-life size bronze statue of Pietro Micca, a Savoyard soldier who became a national hero for his sacrifice in the defence of Turin (1706) against the French troops is located on about 4 meters high sandstone pedestal. The monument was made in 1863 by Giuseppe Cassano (1825-1905) and it was dedicated in 1864. The statue presents the hero wearing long, tight trousers, long coat wearing a headscartf. In his hands he holds a fuse and the long sword is hanged on his belt.
Pietro Micca (March 6,1677 - August 30, 1706)
was the miner who in 1706 became the Hero of Turin. Recruited by the Savoys during the Spanish Succession war, he sacrificed his life to stop the French invasion.
Pietro Micca was born in Sagliano d'Andorno (now Sagliano Micca, where the simple house where he lived still exists) on 5th March 1677 and died in Turin in 1706; it was just Pietro's turn, almost three centuries ago, to protect Turin, when he was 29 years old and his occupation was not to be a soldier.
Since two years married, with his one year old son, he was a miner in the Andorno's valley.
Following the maternal family's traditions, Pietro since young learned to work with the stone and became stone-cutter and miner. In July 1703 the sabaud king Vittorio Amedeo II, who had no army, recuited him together with other 20 thousand young boys from piedmont.
His troops were disarmed in the Saint Benedetto Po's plane by the duke of Vendome's army, under the order of the French sovreign Luis XIV and the king needed men to declare war to France and Spain; he knew even that he needed miners who were able to dig tunnels because the battle was surely fought near the citadel.
For this reason, among the 20 thousand new soldiers, he chosed fifty miners and there was also Pietro Micca.
As miner, he was used to work underground, and therefore he was destinated to the troops assigned to defend Turin fortress underground the galleries, which the French tried to violate many times.
In the enlistment register, besides his surname, there was his nickname: Passepartout. In that period the fact to add a nickname was not only a custom, but more a practical necessity: in the valley from which Pietro Micca came, the surnames were almost all the same.
During the night between 29th and 30th August 1706, during the siege of Turin by the French army, the enemies entered in one of the underground galleries of the Citadel, killing the sentries and trying to kick in one of the door which got inside.
Pietro Micca was on guard at one of this doors together with a comrade in arms. The two soldiers heard shots and understood that they could not resist lengthy: for this reason they decided to pop gun powder (a 20 chilogramm jar put in a gallery ravine named "high capital"; but they could not use a long fuse because it implied too much time to brust the powders, so Micca decided to use a short fuse, concious of the risks he would have run. Instinctively he expelled his companion (with a sentence which became famous: "Stand up, go and save yourself because you are longer than a day without bread") and without hesitate he seted fire to the powders running towards the stairs which brought to the surface.
Unfortunately the patriot's body was found lifeless at fourty steps of distance, where he was thrown by the airflow because of the explosion.
The stairs' location where the heroical act happened was situated only in 1958 thanks to the researches of Guido Amoretti, at that time capitan, now general, passionated archaeologist and expert of the history of Turin. The conception of the Pietro Micca Museum and of Turin's siege in 1706 is due to him.
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