The vineyard and garden complex was built on the Turin hill modeled after Roman villas, by Prince Cardinal Maurizio of Savoy, son of Carlo Emanuele I, at the beginning of the seventeenth century. In 1657, his wife Lodovica expanded the buildings and gardens, updating the decoration and furnishings. In 1692, the vineyard passed to Anna of Orleans, wife of Vittorio Amedeo II, who arranged, in what would now be called Villa della Regina, important interventions.
Under the guidance of Filippo Juvarra, and then Giovanni Pietro Baroni di Tavigliano, spaces and their relationships with the garden, the furnishings and seventeenth-century decorations (D. Seyter and P. Somasso’s team) were redefined, involving great artists working at the royal workshops of the kingdom’s capital (G.B. Crosato and C. Giaquinto, G. Dallamano).
The unity maintained from the very initial project, of vineyard, then villa with the princely pavilions, the grottos, water features in the gardens and park, and the service and agricultural areas at the time of delivery to the Superintendence for the Historical, Artistic and Demoethnoanthropological Heritage of Piedmont in 1994, was preserved even with the loss of function and the 1868 transfer to the Institute for the Daughters of Military Personnel (an institution dissolved in 1975). The lack of maintenance of the delicate balance between built structures and gardens, followed by gradual abandonment, partial dismantling, war damage and inappropriate interventions, compromised the extraordinary complex in the twentieth century, leading to degradation close to collapse.
Since its transfer to the then Superintendence for Artistic and Historical Heritage of Piedmont in 1994, restorations carried out with state, institutional and private funds have restored the conservational state and the close connection of the Villa della Regina Complex with the City, of which, since the early seventeenth century, it has constituted the scenic backdrop beyond the Po River.
Information on Villa della Regina
Strada Comunale Santa Margherita, 79
10131 Turin (Turin)
011 8194484
pm-pie.villadellaregina@beniculturali.it
https://www.polomusealepiemonte.beniculturali.it
Source: MIBACT
