The future Galleria Sabauda displayed to the public the main artworks from the dynastic collections: this emptied the large Galleria del Beaumont, annexed to the Royal Palace, where starting from 1833 they began to collect “all the ancient weapons owned by the various establishments” and, in particular, those coming from the Arsenals of Turin and Genoa, along with those from the University and the private collections of the sovereigns.
In the same year, King Carlo Alberto purchased the important collection of the Milanese scenographer Alessandro Sanquirico; the sale was brokered by Captain Vittorio Seyssel d’Aix, who in the following years augmented the Armoury with several pieces from the Parisian antique market. The museum, opened to the public in 1837, featured a suggestive layout where the eighteenth-century decoration of the gallery, designed by the architect Filippo Juvarra and adorned by the court painter Claudio Francesco Beaumont, contrasted with the arrangement of objects in display cases and on the walls, according to a taste for the gothic revival beloved by European Romanticism.
In 1839, the substantial collection of arms and armor of the Martinengo counts from Brescia was acquired; three years later, the architect Pelagio Palagi completed the Rotonda, where the neoclassical display cases housed weapons and flags that entered the museum after 1848 and, above all, those related to the Risorgimento wars; this section was further enriched, after 1878, by the donation of the collections of Carlo Alberto and Vittorio Emanuele II. During the first half of the 20th century, the Armoury’s heritage was expanded with the collections of Umberto I and Vittorio Emanuele III and with objects linked to the African wars and the world wars.
Starting from 1998, the Armoury underwent a series of interventions beginning with the restoration of the grand staircase designed by Benedetto Alfieri, continuing with the restoration of the Medal Cabinet, and concluding in 2005 with the reopening of the Galleria del Beaumont and the recovery of the historic layout, which had previously been modified to adapt it to more rigorously philological museographic criteria.
The reopening of the Loggia in 2011 restored public access to the view over the castle square, traditionally used by the royal family to greet the crowd.
Information about the Royal Armoury of Turin
Piazza Castello, 191 10122 Turin (Turin)
