The workshop of the carpenter, Barzochino
At house number 2 in Via San Giorgio, there was the carpenter’s workshop belonging to Barzochino, a family of woodworking craftsmen and artists from Fossano, who had moved to Chieri in the XVIIIth century. Here the young student, John Bosco, spent his hours free from studies amongst the planks, hammers and nails of the workshop, learning how to plane, square and saw wood and use wisely all the workman’s tools. The training in the workshop and the craftsman’s activity were to be fundamental experience for his future, when, after the priesthood, he became a promoter of the opening of technical and professional schools, to close the institutional gap left by the King of Sardinia.
The offices of the Chieri Council until 1842
On the site where St. Anna’s school now stands, there was the building which once held the offices of the City Council. Here John Bosco paid honour to the mayor and all the citizens of Chieri by giving two concerts, in which he recited poems by Dante, Monti, Parini, Petrarchus and Tasso, sang songs and performed plays. Poetry, music and theatre were always dear to Don Bosco, so much so that he considered them fundamental instruments in the method of educational training for children, which is nowadays still an integral Salesian tradition.
