MUSEI REALI DI TORINO – PALAZZO REALE

The Royal Palace of Turin is the first and most important between the Savoy residences in Piedmont, as well as the heart of the Savoy kingdom's policy for at least three centuries.

Official residence of the Savoy family until 1865, already Bishop's Palace, was transformed by Ascanio Vitozzi at 1584 for Charles Emmanuel I, and subsequently extended and restructured thanks to an uninterrupted series of interventions that featured the greatest architects and artists active in Turin between the 18th and 19th centuries.

From theatrium you access the main floor through the Staircase of Honour, from which the boardrooms, sumptuously decorated with carved ceilings, putties, gilding e frescoes.

Among the most fascinating environments are the grandiose Salon of the Swiss, revamped to a design by Pelagius Palagi (1835-1840), the Throne Room, the Coffee Room, the Alcove Chamber of Charles Emmanuel II, the Nineteenth-century Ballroom - one of the most opulent rooms in the palace - and finally the magnificent Scissor Staircase by Filippo Juvarra (1720).

La Scissor Scale leads to the second floor, where the wedding flats of the Princes of Piedmont and the Dukes of Aosta: 30 rooms, cleared and sealed in the 1946, the fall of the monarchy, and reopened to the public in 2007.

In basements of the palace can be visited the spectacular kitchens and the gigantic cellars. From arcaded courtyard is accessed instead at the garden, enclosed by the 17th-century fortifications. Despite the transformations, its layout still retains the traces of the project by André Le Nôtre (1697-1698), the brilliant architect of the gardens of Louis XIV, who had conceived water basins e radially arranged avenues.

Today, the Royal Palace hosts temporary exhibitions, guided tours, educational activities, events e conferences. Like the rest of the Royal Museums of Turin, è can be visited free of charge on the first Sunday of every month.