Palazzo Madama

Madama Palace, the home of the centuries
Madama Palace is called the home of the centuries. No building contains such a great variety of time, of history, of poetry [...] it is as if the stone summed up Turin's entire past, from its origins, from Roman times, to the days of our Risorgimento'. The words of Guido Gozzano (in his work The House of the Centuries, 1914) give an echo to the two thousand years of history of a unique building: in the 1^st century it was the Decuman Gate of Augusta Taurinorum; in the 13^th century a medieval castle; in the 18^th century a masterpiece of the European Baroque; in the 19^th century an astronomical observatory. Then it became the place where "[...] from MDCCCXLVIII to MDCCCLXVI the Senate of the Subalpine Kingdom first, then the Italian Kingdom, reaffirmed and implemented the Albertine Statute, intrepidly supported the rights of the Homeland, started three wars against the foreign oppressor, encouraged daring deeds in Crimea, prepared and sanctioned national unity, established the Kingdom of Italy, proclaimed Rome as the capital", as it is stated in the large cartouche, in gold letters engraved on a black background, on the piano nobile of Madama Palace, which, more than any other Savoy residence, embodies female power.

Home to the Madame Reali
The Palace owes its name to the two Royal Ladies who chose it as their official residence in the 17^th century, marking its transition from castle to residence. Christine of France, the first Royal Lady, moved there in 1638 during her regency on behalf of her son Charles Emmanuel II of Savoy, who was a minor at the time. In order to adapt the building to court life, Christine commissioned the architect Amedeo of Castellamonte to cover the old medieval courtyard in order to create, on the piano nobile, a place of representation and a large hall for parties and receptions.
The second Royal Lady, Jeanne Baptiste of Savoy-Nemours, also lived in the palace after the death of her husband, Duke Charles Emmanuel II, in 1675. On the regent’s orders, the rooms were richly decorated with precious gilded stuccoes modelled by Pietro Somasso and spectacular frescoes celebrating the virtues by Domenico Guidobono

Filippo Juvarra’s great transformation
The most striking transformation was entrusted to the architect Filippo Juvarra who, between 1718 and 1721, designed the façade and the extraordinary two-flight staircase at the entrance.

A new museum
When the capital of Italy was moved to Florence in 1884, Madama Palace became the object of study and restoration works coordinated by the architect Alfredo d'Andrade, accompanied by an excavation and reconnaissance campaign to reconstruct its complex and millennial history. In 1934 Madama Palace entered a new phase, housing the collections of the Civic Museum of Ancient Art on four floors, an itinerary through time and history: the Medieval Lapidary on the underground floor, the Gothic and Renaissance on the ground floor, the Baroque Arts on the first floor, and the exceptional collection of Decorative Arts on the second floor. The Medieval Garden at the foot of the two towers, an oasis of peace and quiet in the centre of Turin, was inaugurated in 2011.