MUSEI REALI

Turin's Musei Reali ("Royal Museums") are located in the heart of the ancient city. They bring together the main sites that were central to the court of royal Turin, and offer a fascinating itinerary of history, art and nature through the centuries.

Palazzo Reale
This was the first and most important royal residence of the House of Savoy. The palace, as it appears today, was built on the initiative of Marie-Christine de France in 1646, having been badly damaged by the siege of the city in 1640. The work rehabilitated an earlier structure dating from 1559, commissioned by Emmanuel-Philibert when he transferred the capital of the Duchy of Savoy from Chambéry to Turin. The palace was the most important royal residence until 1865, when Victor-Emmanuel II moved the capital of the Kingdom of Italy temporarily to Florence, then definitively to Rome. The interior decor illustrates the evolution of Savoy family taste from the ^15th to the ^19th century. From the ^17th century onwards, it was customary to refresh the palace for each royal wedding. Trompe-l'oeil frescoes, gilding (the masterly work of Piedmontese craftsmen), painted ceilings, a collection of clocks, the throne room, of course, and a precious "Chinese cabinet" designed by Filippo Juvarra are the centerpieces of the palace. Also not to be missed is the Caffè Reale, a delightfully baroque tea room, in unison with the rest of the palace, where it's essential to stop and sip a bicerin or a hot chocolate as if you were still at court. The Palazzo Reale adjoins the Chapel of the Holy Shroud, a majestic Baroque showcase designed for the "treasure" brought back from Chambéry when the capital was transferred. Work lasted twenty-two years, from 1668 to 1690, and the precious relic was installed here in 1694. The chapel was destroyed by fire twenty-five years ago, in 1997. The chapel has now been restored to its original splendor, and the Holy Shroud is protected from fire or damage by an extensive system, and is only shown on rare occasions. Behind the Palazzo Reale, the Giardini Reali occupy an immense 10-hectare area. They were built on ancient fortifications. They were designed by André Le Nôtre, the famous architect of the gardens at Versailles. Rich in statues, parterres and fountains, you can go there freely at any time of day, before and after visits, to take a break... The Royal Gardens are divided into several parts (lower and upper gardens), and the upper part is made up of several gardens including the spectacular Jardin des Arts, with the Nereids and Tritons fountain, the Duke's Garden or the Boschetto.

Royal Armory
One of the world's richest collections of weapons, housed in the left wing of the Palazzo Reale. Designed and inaugurated by Charles Albert in 1837, it houses a unique collection of edged weapons, firearms and armor dating from the ^12th to the ^19th century, including the weapons of the Emperor Napoleon's grognards. The museography, which resembles a stage set, has not really changed through the ages: along the impressive Galerie Beaumont, imposing stuffed horses from the Savoy family line up in parade harness. The vaulted ceilings are decorated with frescoes depicting stories from theAeneid.

Royal Library

Located in the right wing of the Palais Royal, this library, created by Charles-Albert in 1831, houses over 18,000 rare books and 4,000 manuscripts dating from the ^15th and ^16th centuries and retracing the history of the Savoy state. But the real gem of the collection is a collection of thirteen drawings by Leonardo da Vinci, including his famous Self-Portrait in Sanguine (on view only during temporary exhibitions) and the Codex of the Flight of Birds. Also noteworthy are the collections of master sketches by Raphael, Tiepolo, Rembrandt and Van Dyck.

Galleria Sabauda
As Piedmont's leading collection of ancient paintings, Galleria Sabauda is a veritable treasure trove. Exhibited until 2012 in the Palazzo dell'Accademia delle Scienze, the 500 master canvases had to be moved to make way for the Egyptian Museum. However, they are the winners of this move, as the brilliant museography through the rooms of the right wing of the Palazzo Reale (1899-1903) offers a grandiose approach to more than six centuries of European painting. The tour follows a chronological order, from the Middle Ages to the ^18th century, and develops over three levels.
Ground floor, rooms 1-7. The quality of the collection is evident from the very first rooms on the first floor, featuring four major artists: Van Eyck's The Stigmata of St. Francis, Beato Angelico's Madonna and Child, Hans Memling's The Passion of the Christ and Filippino Lippi's Three Archangels. This is followed by a ^15th-century face-off between Italy and Flanders, with fine paintings by Piedmont's Gaudenzio Ferrari.
First floor, rooms 8-30. The grand staircase and panoramic elevators lead to the second floor, where the visit continues into the ^16th century. Gaudenzio Ferrari's Crucifixion is almost theatrically staged. The grandiloquence of Venetian colorism follows in Veronese's The Last Supper with Simon the Pharisee , as well as in the monumental canvases created by the Bassano brothers for Carlo Emanuele I of Savoia towards the end of the century (rooms 17 to 22). The tour continues into the ^17th century, between classicism and the Caravaggesque movement. Guercin, Valentin de Boulogne, Guido Reni and Francesco Albani are all represented. Special mention should be made of a remarkable Annunciation (1623) by Orazio Gentileschi, one of the museum's masterpieces. Freeze frame in room 29 with five very fine ^17th-century Flemish paintings: two by Rubens(Dejanira tempted by the Fury and Hercules in the Garden of the Esperides), and three sumptuous portraits by Van Dyck, including the Equestrian Portrait of Prince Thomas François de Savoia Carignano.
Second floor, rooms 31-53. Honor ^17th-century Dutch painting with Rembrandt's virtuoso Portrait of a Sleeping Old Man. An entire room is dedicated to the battle scenes commissioned from Jan Van Huctenburg by Prince Eugène de Savoie Soissons, a general in the service of the Austrian Emperor Leopold ^I in the early ^18th century. The large, classicizing compositions of Francesco Solimena, Sebastiano Ricci and Giovanni Battista Tiepolo are matched by the small-format works of the Venetian vedutisti trio: Guardi, Bellotto and Canaletto.
Third floor, Gualino collection. The top floor of the palazzo is reserved for the repositories, restoration laboratory and works of the Piedmontese industrialist Gualino, who donated them to the Galleria in 1929. An interesting bourgeois collection, including some fine altarpieces by Duccio da Buoninsegna and Veronese.

Museo di Antichità
Housed in the former royal orangery of the Savoy court, this is a museum where you can learn all about the ancient Roman city of Augusta Taurinorum. With windows overlooking the unspoilt old town of Turin, the museum presents a collection of prehistoric, Etruscan and Greco-Roman remains collected by Emmanuel-Philibert of Savoy, and relating to Piedmont. Among these marvels, the Marengo Treasure, made up of silver pieces dating from the ^1st century BC to the ^3rd century AD, is a must-see.

Sale Chiablese
Located on the first floor of Palazzo Chiablese on Piazzetta Reale, the Sale Chiablese are an integral part of the Musei Reali and are used to host temporary exhibitions. The rest of Palazzo Chiablese, a handsome, austere palace redesigned by Benedetto Alfieri in the ^17th century, is not open to the public. After being the first home of the National Cinema Museum, it now also houses the offices of the Ministry of Cultural Affairs. For centuries, it was the residence of the youngest princes of Savoy, including the Duke of Chablais and the Duke of Genoa, Charles-Felix, future King of Sardinia.