Turin has grown as a fortified and planned city since becoming the capital of Savoy, whose Duke Emmanuel Philibert has limited the power of numerous localities and centralized state finances.

Increased taxes and economic recovery have allowed him to maintain a small but disciplined standing army, which will become the basis of Piedmontese military power.

Emmanuel Philibert has substituted Italian for Latin as the official language, and at the time of his death on August 30, 1580, is arranging for the acquisition of the marquisate of Saluzzo, which had passed to France in 1548.

His son Charles Emmanuel succeeds him.

The Marquisate of Saluzzo, embracing the territory lying between the Alps, the Po and the Stura, had been extended on several occasions.

It had had a checkered existence in the Middle Ages, often being in conflict with powerful neighbors, chiefly the Counts (later Dukes) of Savoy.

After long struggles for independence, the marquisate had been occupied in 1548 by the French, as a fief of the Crown of France—with the name of Saluces.

The ambitious Charles Emmanuel I of Savoy, following a policy of expansion for his duchy and taking advantage of the civil war weakening France during the reign of his first cousin Henry III, in autumn 1588 takes possession of the city.

Saluzzo will henceforward share the destinies of Piedmont, with which it forms "one of the keys of the house" of Italy.