The two-thousand-year building
Augustus's gate, castle, Baroque — history in stacked faces.
Federico Spadaro — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Gianni Careddu — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Marie-Lan Taÿ Pamart — Public domain · Marie-Lan Taÿ Pamart — Public domain
Two royal regents who ruled Savoy from this palace in the seventeenth century — Christine of France, then Giovanna Battista — steering the duchy shrewdly through Europe's storms, the second commissioning Juvarra's front and stair. Madama being the regent's title, the palace became theirs.
Free first: façade, stair, hall, then the circle to the Roman back — fifteen minutes tell the building. The ticket is for lovers of decorative arts and miniatures, and a calm hour above the square.
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Palazzo Madama is Turin's history in one building: its east face a genuine Roman gate of Augustus's age, towers still standing in its body; the body a medieval castle with its courts; the west face Italian Baroque's most sumptuous front — Juvarra's masterpiece (1721) with the twin royal staircase counted Europe's loveliest, built for the two royal Madame of Savoy, regents who gave it their name. Inside is the civic Museum of Ancient Art: Piedmont's centuries in miniatures — Fouquet's famous praying portrait its jewel — ceramics, ivories and furniture in Baroque rooms over the square. Its tower opens Piazza Castello panoramically. It is the building all Turin crosses in its central square — enter its body if only for Juvarra's stair: the free-hall ascent repays the detour.
Augustus's gate, castle, Baroque — history in stacked faces.
The twin royal stair — Europe's loveliest Baroque ascent.
The fifteenth century's famous miniature — a face centuries before realism.
Piazza Castello, 10122 Turin