Description
The Museo Civico d'Arte Antica occupies Palazzo Madama, on Piazza Castello, in Turin. Its more than seventy thousand works range from the Middle Ages to the 1700s: sculptures, paintings, ceramics, ivories, gold, silver, furniture and textiles, in thirty-five rooms on four floors, plus a panoramic floor.
The route climbs through time, floor after floor, and suits anyone who wants to see Piedmontese art in its original setting: the palace itself is part of the visit, with its Roman foundations, the Senate hall and the apartments of the Madame Reali.
You start in the basement with the Middle Ages: Piedmontese sculptures, a mosaic from the Cathedral of Acqui and the goldwork of the Desana Treasure. On the ground floor is Gothic and Renaissance art, in the great hall built by Ludovico d'Acaja in the early 1400s.
The 15th-century Treasure Tower holds some of the museum's most representative works: the Portrait of a Man by Antonello da Messina and the illuminated manuscript of the Très belles Heures de Notre Dame by Jean de Berry, along with objects from the Cabinet of Curiosities of Charles Emmanuel I of Savoy.
On the piano nobile you enter the apartments of the Madame Reali, lavishly decorated, with paintings and furniture from the 1600s and 1700s, including pieces by Pietro Piffetti. The second floor is for the decorative arts: ceramics, ivories, glass, textiles, bronze statuettes. Other rooms host sculptures on the theme of the lamentation over the dead Christ.
Turin's civic museum was born in 1863 near the Mole Antonelliana. In 1934 its collections of ancient art moved here, to the palace that had been the first home of the Galleria Sabauda, from 1832 to 1865.
In 1865 the Senate of the Kingdom, which had met in the palace since 1848, left for Florence. The museum reopened to the public in 2006, after restoration, and periodically hosts exhibitions and shows.
Anyone who climbs all the way to the top finds the panoramic floor, above all the others.
The building has a history two thousand years long: Roman gate, fortified house, castle of the princes of Acaja, Baroque palace of the Madame Reali. The rooms follow the layers of that history, from the oldest to the most recent.
Don't miss
• The Treasure Tower.
• Antonello da Messina's Portrait of a Man.
• Jean de Berry's Très belles Heures.
• The apartments of the Madame Reali.
Did you know?
• The Treasure Tower also holds objects from the Cabinet of Curiosities of Charles Emmanuel I of Savoy.
• The museum has had its own annual journal, "Palazzo Madama. Studi e notizie," since 2010.
The route climbs through time, floor after floor, and suits anyone who wants to see Piedmontese art in its original setting: the palace itself is part of the visit, with its Roman foundations, the Senate hall and the apartments of the Madame Reali.
You start in the basement with the Middle Ages: Piedmontese sculptures, a mosaic from the Cathedral of Acqui and the goldwork of the Desana Treasure. On the ground floor is Gothic and Renaissance art, in the great hall built by Ludovico d'Acaja in the early 1400s.
The 15th-century Treasure Tower holds some of the museum's most representative works: the Portrait of a Man by Antonello da Messina and the illuminated manuscript of the Très belles Heures de Notre Dame by Jean de Berry, along with objects from the Cabinet of Curiosities of Charles Emmanuel I of Savoy.
On the piano nobile you enter the apartments of the Madame Reali, lavishly decorated, with paintings and furniture from the 1600s and 1700s, including pieces by Pietro Piffetti. The second floor is for the decorative arts: ceramics, ivories, glass, textiles, bronze statuettes. Other rooms host sculptures on the theme of the lamentation over the dead Christ.
Turin's civic museum was born in 1863 near the Mole Antonelliana. In 1934 its collections of ancient art moved here, to the palace that had been the first home of the Galleria Sabauda, from 1832 to 1865.
In 1865 the Senate of the Kingdom, which had met in the palace since 1848, left for Florence. The museum reopened to the public in 2006, after restoration, and periodically hosts exhibitions and shows.
Anyone who climbs all the way to the top finds the panoramic floor, above all the others.
The building has a history two thousand years long: Roman gate, fortified house, castle of the princes of Acaja, Baroque palace of the Madame Reali. The rooms follow the layers of that history, from the oldest to the most recent.
Don't miss
• The Treasure Tower.
• Antonello da Messina's Portrait of a Man.
• Jean de Berry's Très belles Heures.
• The apartments of the Madame Reali.
Did you know?
• The Treasure Tower also holds objects from the Cabinet of Curiosities of Charles Emmanuel I of Savoy.
• The museum has had its own annual journal, "Palazzo Madama. Studi e notizie," since 2010.