Cuneo

Following the armistice of Cherasco on 28 April 1796, the King of Italy ordered that "the town and square of Cuneo be temporarily returned to the French as a deposit". On 7 February 1799, Cuneo voted to join France and became the capital of the department of Stura. By the time Napoleon returned to Paris from Egypt to set up his consulate, the Austro-Russian stranglehold had already tightened around Cuneo: the last siege ended in December with the surrender of the garrison that had remained in the town. Bonaparte returned to Piedmont after the victory at Marengo on 14 June 1800.

The town of 16,540 inhabitants was at the head of a county that in 1806 had 429,569 inhabitants. The presence of the French was marked by numerous changes to the town, the most important of which was the demolition of the fortifications, according to the Plan et projet d'agrandissement et embellissement de la Ville de Coni, commissioned in 1802 by General Jourdan, and which constituted the town's first urban development plan. The first municipal library in Piedmont was opened in Cuneo in 1802.

In 1803, in a former monastic building expropriated from the Capuchins, an "auditorium" was built, which later became the present-day Toselli Civic Theatre. On 21 December 1811, on the premises of the former clerical seminary, the national boarding school, or lyceum, was inaugurated. In 1809, Cuneo witnessed the visit of Pope Pius VII, who was arrested by Napoleon and stayed in the town during his journey to France, leaving behind him memories and anecdotes that are now part of the history of the area.