Funerary chapel (1948) architect Vittorio Eugenio Ballatore di Rosana, sculptor Umberto Matroianni
Construction date: 1948
Designer: Vittorio Eugenio Ballatore di Rosana (1880 – 1948)
Sculptor: Umberto Mastroianni (1910 – 1998)
Location: Cimitero Monumentale di Torino, III Ampliazione sterro Nord – Est n. 244 bis
Typology: chapel with the underground chamber
Materials: Anzola diorite, verzino of Frabosa marble, serpentinite, bronze.
Skilled workers: Bronzes- F. Bono
“The chapel was realized in 1948 by Vittorio Eugenio Ballatore di Rosana. Inside is buried Candido Viberti, car body manufacturer and founder of the first large national factory for the bodywork of an industrial type. The building is in blocks of diorite of Anzola and verzino of Frabosa marble for the frame of the portal and the left side of the chapel. It develops in a parallelepiped volume in the form of a small temple punctuated by pilasters on the entire perimeter. The top is decorated with a series of frames and an element in the form of a broken tympanum. The architecture presents characters of the neo-baroque lexicon and is characterized by the revival of a historicist language, which is observed in particular in the modeling of the portal frame and in the gable. On the left side, there is a kiosk that houses the statue of the Madonna of Peace made in serpentinite by the sculptor Umberto Mastroianni, which is a copy of the one made in 1931. The white marble bas-relief that surmounts the altar was also same sculptor.
The front door and the window bars were made by the sculptor F.Bono. The latter also realized the bust of Pietro Ferrero, the secretary of the FIOM union killed by the fascists on December 18, 1922 following the assault of the Turin Chamber of Labor. (The bust is at the entrance hall to the Sala Pia Lai of the Turin Chamber of Labor.) The marble workers Aurelio and Felice Stella took care of the procurement and processing of stone materials. Their marble processing workshop was based in Turin in via Magenta 49 and in Malanaggio. Aurelio and Felice Stella, owners of the stone quarries of Malanaggio and of white marble of Issogne in Val d'Aosta, realized many works not only in the Monumental cemetery of Turin but also in other cemeteries including the cemetery of Oropa (tomb Pugno). The architect V.E. Rosanna's Ballatore is buried at the Turin Monumental Cemetery in the Prima Ampliazione area n.91 and the architect Carlo Ceppi rests in the same burial." Dr. Carlotta Melis