Residences of the Royal House of Savoy - Palazzo Madama - Turin, Italy - World Heritage Sites on Waymarking.com

At the time of the Roman Empire, Palazzo Madama was the entrance gate to the city in correspondence to the decuman maximum (east-west axis), today Via Garibaldi. Two tall towers, those that still stand on the pedestrian side of the piazza, framed four arched openings that allowed entry into and exit from Augusta Taurinorum eastward.

In the Middle Ages the Roman Gate was converted from the city's threshold to its defense. The Roman arches were closed and a new passage, the Fibellona Gate, was opened next to the southern tower, most important, a fortalice was erected next to the towers.

During the first few decades of the 1300s, the fortified structure was transformed into a castle at the behest of Filippo I d'Acaja, who belonged to the younger son branch of the House of Savoy. But only at the beginning of the 1400s, with Ludovico d'Acaja, did the castle take on the semblance of one of the two present-day two images of Palazzo Madama: four corner towers, staircases to connect the various floors and, inside, a court surrounded by a portico.

In 1637 Christine of France, regent of the duchy in the name of her underage son Carlo Emanuele II, designated the castle as her residence, and started a modernization project that involved covering the inner medieval court.
However, it was Maria Giovanna Battista of Savoy-Nemours, the widow of Carlo Emanuele II, who created the new image of that which has become Palazzo Madama, the nickname of the official residence of the royal madames. The architect Filippo Juvarra was commissioned the project of the grandiose forepart (completed in 1721), one of the most important creations of baroque architecture in Europe.
Juvarra's project was originally much more ambitious, but was never completed and that which has remained is the staircase, which is truly a masterpiece: a sort of baroque mask covering the impressive medieval edifice, a mask that does not hide but amplifies the view from inside to out and outside to in. Thus Palazzo Madama definitively added another function to the series which it already contained (gate, passage, defense, residence): a new image of power: a central visible sign of power in the heart of the city.
This is why in 1799, during the French domination, General Barthélemy-Catherine Joubert instituted the seat of the provisional government there

In 1832 Carlo Alberto improved the fate of the building by making it the venue of the Royal Picture Gallery. It was the first time the palace housed a museum.
However, the functions and appearances continued to stratify, and politics also became part of the palace. In 1848 the Subalpine Senate was set up in the large hall on the first floor, destined to become one of the emblematic birthplaces of the Risorgimento. In 1869 the palace accommodated another important institutional body: the Supreme Court. In 1883 the studies of the architect-archeologist Alfredo D'Andrade began and included major archeological digs that made it possible to reconstruct the two thousand year history of the building.

In 1934 when Palazzo Madama became the home of the Museo Civico d'Arte Antica, the building had already resumed its medieval semblance, having had its battlement, roof and so-called "cammini di ronda" (walkways) restored.

Type: Building Reference number: 823

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Date Logged Log User Rating   02/12/2023 Team gEco Friendly visited it 08/19/2008 Papiolencs visited it

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