SUSTAIN US

The official opening of the new headquarters, beyond the Dora, (currently at the intersection of Lungodora Firenze and via Aosta), took place on April 8, 1877. The building, with its entrance in via Aosta 4, had been designed by the engineer Giovanni Battista Ferrante who was one of Murialdo's most committed collaborators in the management of the oratory. He held the position of director of the patronage, that is, he followed the older children helping them to enter the world of work. "Lay director" of the oratory; he was responsible for organizing the games and all other activities with the exception of those of a liturgical and religious nature, which were the responsibility of the "spiritual or ecclesiastical director".

The oratory, however, was born on the other side of the river, in Borgo Dora, just behind Porta Palazzo, and precisely in what is now called Piazza Albera. Once there were the Molini Dora, also known as Molassi. Wheat was ground there, but olives were pressed and hemp was pulled apart. The water was supplied by the Molassi Canal, which in this area is no longer visible because it is covered. Near the mills there was a chapel dedicated to San Martino. It was located at the corner of via Priocca and via Fiocchetto and was used for the religious assistance of mill workers and their families. The chapel of San Martino was for a certain period the seat of the San Francesco di Sales Oratory, founded by Don Bosco, who used it for catechism, while for the games he used the square in front and the street. But Don Bosco’s stay at the Molassi lasted a few months, from 13 July 1845 to the end of the year, then he had to emigrate again, until he found a definitive accommodation in Valdocco.

A few years passed during which the chapel remained unused. In the meantime, Don Bosco made his oratory in Valdocco grow and prosper, while Don Cocchi had founded the Collegio Artigianelli. And it was Don Cocchi himself who remembered San Martino in Borgo Dora. He obtained free use of the chapel, the annexed chambers and the small courtyard from the town hall. He sent a team of Artigianelli to sweep away dust and cobwebs and to fix the humble church.

Thus in February 1852, thanks to Don Cocchi, the Oratorio San Martino was born, for the boys of Borgo Dora and the urchins of Porta Palazzo. The oratory, which took its name from the church, was soon entrusted to Don Ponte, because Don Cocchi, in November of that same year, had moved to Cavoretto, on the Turin hill, to found an agricultural colony.

With Don Ponte, the San Martino also became a Sunday meeting place for the chimney sweeps of the Aosta Valley, who came down to Turin in winter for their hard work. Here at San Martino it was the confreres of the Conference of San Vincenzo who took care of their catechism (in French, because the chimney sweeps did not speak Italian) and to provide them with a plate of soup.

In 1866 Don Ponte became rector of the church of Sant’Anna in via Massena and left the San Martino. On that occasion the “disciplinary” (ie organizational) direction passed to the laity of the Conference of Saint Vincent who had already helped the priest before. The "spiritual" direction had to be assumed by the rector of the Artigianelli College, another work which, like the oratory, had begun under the impulse of Don Cocchi. However, "since the priests of the house [of the Artigianelli] were scarce, the Theologian Berizzi offered the task to Fr Alessandro Lana, a young and very exemplary priest [...] who willingly took to directing the oratory in the spirit and there he applied himself with the ardor of an apostle but too soon, that is to say in 1869, he was kidnapped by death ”(Reffo).

After the death of Don Lana (30 December 1869), the previous approach continued: an "ecclesiastical" director, Don Felice Gloria, and a "disciplinary" director, engineer Ferrante, president of the Conference of San Vincenzo who was of the oratory. Two years later, at the end of 1871, Don Gloria became assistant pastor in the parish of Carmine. It was then that the rector of the Artigianelli College had to personally undertake the commitment of spiritual direction.

The director of the Collegio Artigianelli was then Murialdo, who therefore from the end of 1871 also took over the direction of the San Martino, with the help of the other priests of the college in the liturgical celebrations.

If Murialdo and the other priests were thinking above all of the formative and spiritual aspect, the organizational and disciplinary direction was in the hands of the young people of the Conferences of San Vincenzo.

A "typical" Sunday at the oratory began with the entrance of the boys and some gymnastics; he continued with the first mass, games and sometimes some school lessons; the morning was concluded by the second mass. After lunch, which the boys went to eat at their home, the oratory reopened its doors: there was catechesis, then games, gymnastics (but not always), and finally the religious function in the evening, with the eucharistic blessing.

In Lent, the oratory also opened on weekdays, at noon and then in the evening, to allow young workers to attend catechesis. In the month of May, a Marian service took place every evening. In the most important holidays then, everything became more solemn and animated, the lotteries, the bingo, the walks, the annual trip...

One of the most significant activities carried out by the confreres of San Vincenzo was patronage, that is, the interest in children and young people not only in the oratory, but also outside, seeking contact with the families of the children for disciplinary problems, for the placement at work, to meet economic difficulties, to verify compliance with contracts by the bosses...

But the municipality of Turin was pressing to get the San Martino premises back into use: the oratory was thus forced to move to what is now Via Aosta, at the intersection with the Lungo Dora Firenze. A building was built with various classrooms and a large hall adapted to a chapel, which was inaugurated on the day of the move, April 8, 1877, with a mass celebrated by Murialdo.

Ten years later the rooms expanded, because the number of children was growing. In 1893 Fr Cocchi blessed the laying of the first stone for the construction of a new chapel, which was inaugurated on 1 July 1894 with the blessing given by Fr Michele Rua, Rector Major of the Salesians, who had spent some time in the Molassi fifty years earlier. as a pupil of the Oratory of San Francesco de Sales.

Meanwhile the Josephites were increasingly involved in the activities of the oratory, so much so that in 1902 the Conferences of San Vincenzo ceded the direction and administration of the oratory to the congregation founded by Murialdo. The history of the second site, that of via Aosta, ends in 1928: the oratory, built with many sacrifices, was sold to at least partially cover the debts caused by the construction of the Shrine of Our Lady of Health in Borgo Vittoria. In May 1928, the San Martino Oratory was thus transferred to the Salute church, where it still continues in its activities.