The Michelotti canal, Turin Italy, (1817)

The Michelotti canal was an old waterway which flowed parallel to the Po river. It began near the church of Grande Madre di Dio, it crossed the Michelotti park, it passed by the the  Madonna del Pilone church, and  ended close to the old Sassi churchyard just after the Casotto of Superga, where my Grandfather lived. 

This canal had steep and gloomy banks lined with high green plane trees, most of them survived till today.

In some places the canal was extremely beautiful and pictoresque, in some others it looked like a deep, ugly  looking roadside ditch lost in a rank vegetation, in its last part the water was clear and whirling, the canal bottom was not deep and full of pebbles and stones.

It was covered in  1935 when Rome street in the city centre was completely renovated, using the removed materials from the demolished buildings.

Today the canal is a anonymous footpath along the river, without memories of its past.

The Michelotti canal today