Description
The Villa della Regina is a 17th-century villa on the hill of Turin, in the Borgo Po district, with an Italian garden carved into the slope. It was the summer residence of the Savoy queens, and since 1997 it has been part of the Residences of the Royal House of Savoy, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The Italian garden is laid out like an amphitheater: you climb from the elliptical terrace-square, the Gran Rondeau, with a fountain and twelve statues of river gods, up to an exedra with twenty niches. At the top is the Belvedere, from which you look down over the villa.
Along the staircase is the Grotta del Re Selvaggio, entirely in marble and colored stones, and a little cascade that carries water to the fountains below. At the back is the vineyard, producing again: in 2008 the Freisa di Chieri was harvested.
Inside, the central hall and the Chinese-style salons are the most famous rooms. The villa is a few minutes' walk from the church of the Gran Madre di Dio, climbing the hill to the east.
It was commissioned by Cardinal Maurice of Savoy, who then gave up the cardinal's hat to marry his niece Ludovica, when she was thirteen (he was forty-nine). In his salon, the Accademia dei Solinghi, literature and science were discussed, along with the future Pope Innocent X.
The name arrived in the 18th century, when Anne Marie d'Orléans, wife of Victor Amadeus II, made it her refuge and entrusted the project to Filippo Juvarra. The court often stayed there all through September, after the feast of September 8 for the end of the siege of 1706.
In 1869 it became a boarding school for officers' daughters, with classes in the salons. The bombings of the Second World War destroyed the frescoed vault and part of the hall, and the school closed in 1943.
Then came abandonment: the villa was covered by 400,000 cubic meters of weeds. The restoration, begun in 1994 and lasting over ten years, ended with the reopening in 2007.
The Italian garden is laid out like an amphitheater: you climb from the elliptical terrace-square, the Gran Rondeau, with a fountain and twelve statues of river gods, up to an exedra with twenty niches. At the top is the Belvedere, from which you look down over the villa.
Along the staircase is the Grotta del Re Selvaggio, entirely in marble and colored stones, and a little cascade that carries water to the fountains below. At the back is the vineyard, producing again: in 2008 the Freisa di Chieri was harvested.
Inside, the central hall and the Chinese-style salons are the most famous rooms. The villa is a few minutes' walk from the church of the Gran Madre di Dio, climbing the hill to the east.
It was commissioned by Cardinal Maurice of Savoy, who then gave up the cardinal's hat to marry his niece Ludovica, when she was thirteen (he was forty-nine). In his salon, the Accademia dei Solinghi, literature and science were discussed, along with the future Pope Innocent X.
The name arrived in the 18th century, when Anne Marie d'Orléans, wife of Victor Amadeus II, made it her refuge and entrusted the project to Filippo Juvarra. The court often stayed there all through September, after the feast of September 8 for the end of the siege of 1706.
In 1869 it became a boarding school for officers' daughters, with classes in the salons. The bombings of the Second World War destroyed the frescoed vault and part of the hall, and the school closed in 1943.
Then came abandonment: the villa was covered by 400,000 cubic meters of weeds. The restoration, begun in 1994 and lasting over ten years, ended with the reopening in 2007.