The Carignano Palace was built at the behest of Emanuele Filiberto of Savoy-Carignano, following a design by his father, the Theatine Guarino Guarini, who began its construction in 1679. It is one of the most striking and grandiose palaces of the Italian seventeenth century, featuring a sinuous facade and a simple brick cladding, richly and originally crafted.
The building was erected on the area used as stables by Prince Tommaso, the founder of the cadet branch Savoy-Carignano, and originally had a C-shaped plan open to the gardens; the current quadrangular structure is due to the addition of the nineteenth-century wing built to house the Italian Parliament, completed in 1871, after the capital was moved to Rome. The central elliptical hall located in the seventeenth-century part, once intended for festivities, was transformed in 1848 into the chamber of the First Subalpine Parliament. The Palace houses the National Museum of the Italian Risorgimento in the noble floor rooms and on the ground floor the offices of the Piedmont Museum Hub, as well as some offices of the Fine Arts and Landscape Superintendent of Turin.
Reopened to the public in 2011 thanks to the support of the Compagnia di San Paolo, with an exhibition dedicated to Stefano Maria Legnani, known as ‘il Legnanino’, the skilled painter who decorated its interiors between the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, after half a century it is currently accessible through a permanent visitor route to the Mezzogiorno apartment, also known as the Princes’ apartment. This is a pathway conceived as ‘in progress’, intended to expand and enrich as ongoing investigations increase the level of knowledge about the palace, its history, and the people who lived there.
Information about Carignano Palace
Via Accademia delle Scienze, 5
10123 Turin (Turin)
011 5641791
pm-pie.palazzocarignano@beniculturali.it
https://www.polomusealepiemonte.beniculturali.it
Source: MIBACT
