The watching brief undertaken during work in the inner courtyard of Palazzo San Giorgio, seat of the Cassa di Risparmio di Cuneo, led to the identification of the remains of a medieval building which had been transformed for the construction of the palazzo owned by count Ambrosio di S. Giorgio. The modern flooring covered a substantial layer of rubble filling two cellars and sealing the razing of lacunose portions of walls bonded with patches of mortar floor datable to the full 14th century. The remains of walls, built of horizontal courses of cobbles bonded with mortar belonging to two buildings with elongated plans, were uncovered in the central sector of the area. These buildings were separated by a passageway floored with bricks, similar to others found in the town’s historic centre. The remains of the internal dividing walls of the two structures were documented. Those of the southern structure, in which two rooms were preserved, one with a beaten mortar floor, were more substantial.

The two buildings were gradually modified and partially unified during the 16th century and the 17th century with the partial destruction of the perimeter wall of the northern building and part of the passageway. Cellars, accessed by stairways, were inserted, an intervention which completely removed the ancient stratigraphy in the western part of the palazzo. In the northern part of the excavation area several patches of cobbled surface relating to an open space delimited by a cobblestone wall were uncovered. A portico, of which the base of a column or small pillar was preserved, may have faced onto this open area.

In the 18th century the courtyard was enlarged by the infilling of some of the cellars and channels, built of bricks and stone slabs, draining rainwater into two wells were put in. In the same period a semi-interred icehouse was built. Circular in plan and with a domed covering, it was obliterated by more recent transformations when the courtyard was covered to create a negotiating room.