Description
Palazzo Carignano is one of the most important palaces in central Turin, at the corner of Piazza Carignano: a Baroque building whose brick facade ripples like a wave, in a city of straight, military lines. It is part of the Savoy residences declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.
Here, on the piano nobile, is the National Museum of the Risorgimento, and the visit is worth it for the palace itself: it hosted the first Italian Parliament. Above the doorway, an inscription recalls a famous guest: "Here was born Victor Emmanuel II."
It was designed by Guarino Guarini for Prince Emmanuel Philibert of Savoy-Carignano, known as "the Mute." Work began in 1679. The almost rough terracotta surfaces turn the window frames on the first floor into intricate decorations: an exception in the Turin of the 1600s.
Inside, on the ground floor, are the princes' apartments, with vaults painted by Legnanino with mythological themes. In the Mezzogiorno wing are the “gilded rooms,” so called for their walls of carved, gilded wood.
Another part of the palace faces Piazza Carlo Alberto: it is the 19th-century extension, with a large eclectic facade in pseudo-Renaissance style, built between 1864 and 1871 to a design by Domenico Ferri.
Its hour of glory came almost two centuries later. In 1848 the ballroom was turned into the chamber of the Subalpine Chamber of Deputies, declared a national monument in 1898. Here Charles Albert granted the Statuto and, in 1861, Victor Emmanuel II proclaimed the birth of the Kingdom of Italy.
But the chamber was too small for the new Parliament, and it was decided to double the palace. When the extension was finished, in 1871, the capital was already in Florence and the new chamber was never used.
With the departure of the capital the palace also lost its identity as a residence: private homes and the university's science faculties moved in. Only in the 1930s was it cleared and restored, and since 1939 it has housed the National Museum of the Risorgimento.
Don't miss, on the window frames, the decorations celebrating the exploits of the Carignano family: even a victory in Canada against the Iroquois, in 1667.
Here, on the piano nobile, is the National Museum of the Risorgimento, and the visit is worth it for the palace itself: it hosted the first Italian Parliament. Above the doorway, an inscription recalls a famous guest: "Here was born Victor Emmanuel II."
It was designed by Guarino Guarini for Prince Emmanuel Philibert of Savoy-Carignano, known as "the Mute." Work began in 1679. The almost rough terracotta surfaces turn the window frames on the first floor into intricate decorations: an exception in the Turin of the 1600s.
Inside, on the ground floor, are the princes' apartments, with vaults painted by Legnanino with mythological themes. In the Mezzogiorno wing are the “gilded rooms,” so called for their walls of carved, gilded wood.
Another part of the palace faces Piazza Carlo Alberto: it is the 19th-century extension, with a large eclectic facade in pseudo-Renaissance style, built between 1864 and 1871 to a design by Domenico Ferri.
Its hour of glory came almost two centuries later. In 1848 the ballroom was turned into the chamber of the Subalpine Chamber of Deputies, declared a national monument in 1898. Here Charles Albert granted the Statuto and, in 1861, Victor Emmanuel II proclaimed the birth of the Kingdom of Italy.
But the chamber was too small for the new Parliament, and it was decided to double the palace. When the extension was finished, in 1871, the capital was already in Florence and the new chamber was never used.
With the departure of the capital the palace also lost its identity as a residence: private homes and the university's science faculties moved in. Only in the 1930s was it cleared and restored, and since 1939 it has housed the National Museum of the Risorgimento.
Don't miss, on the window frames, the decorations celebrating the exploits of the Carignano family: even a victory in Canada against the Iroquois, in 1667.