The Palace of the Madam
Palazzo Madama
With the mouthful of a full name that is Palazzo Madama e Casaforte degli Acaja, the site upon which it sits was originally occupied by a Roman gate, though it was used a stronghold after the fall of the Western Roman Empire.
In the 14th century, the building was enlarged into a castle by the Savoia-Acaja family, a secondary branch of the main House of Savoy. Christine of France, regent for Duke Charles Emmanuel II, chose it as her personal residence in 1637, further revamping the interior and commissioning the covering of its internal court.
Sixty years later, Duchess Marie Jeanne of Savoy, known as Madama Reale, lived in the palace, conferring upon it its current name. She commissioned Filippo Juvarra (architect of the Chiesa di San Filippo Neri) to design a new Baroque palazzo on the site, but only the front of the structure was completed.
The structure later housed the provisional French government during the Napoleonic Wars, the Pinacoteca Regia (Royal Art Collection) in the 19th century, and the Subalpine Senate when it was established in 1848. It became the home of the City Museum of Ancient Art in 1934.
Museo Civico d’Arte Antica
The City Museum of Ancient Art was created in 1860 after the unification of Italy, and it is the heir of the Pinacoteca Regia originally established by King Charles Albert of Savoy in 1832. The collection grew with the passage of time, absorbing objects from private collectors and donations from the House of Savoy.
In 1898, the collections were separated into “ancient” and “modern,” with the former being moved to the Palazzo Madama in 1934. From this same vast collection emerged that which is currently held at the Museum of Oriental Art, which opened in 2008. The collection includes illuminated manuscripts, paintings, ceramics, sculptures, and furniture.
To my surprise and delight, the Palazzo Madama has a rooftop terrace overlooking the Piazza Castello and beyond. It was so cold, but so worth it to be able to look out onto the skyline of this gorgeous city with that lovely, gloomy sky, and the nearby hilltops lightly covered by low clouds. Swoon.
The Decorative Arts collection is split into three sections: the Majolica and Porcelain Room, the Atelier Room, and the Glass Room. The ceramics collection alone contains over 4,000 objects, with its core originating in an 1872 donation from the diplomat and collector Marquis Emanuele Taparelli d’Azeglio. It also includes pieces from Vienna, Vincenza, and Dresden.
The museum was at the time of my visit hosting Liberty. Torino Capitale, an exhibition exploring the role of Turin in Art Nouveau. This movement was known in Italian as stile Liberty, or “Liberty Style,” originating in Arthur Lasenby Liberty and the Liberty Department Store, which he founded in London in 1874. The store specialized in ornaments, textiles, and art objects from Japan and the Far East.
The Baroque collection at the Civic Museum is held in the former apartments of the second Royal Madame Maria Giovanna Battista of Savoy-Nemours (who finished the Chiesa di San Filippo Neri after the death of her husband). These rooms also hold the museum’s collection art from the 17th to the 19th centuries, including paintings, sculptures, and furniture, and decorative arts.
Medieval Botanic Garden
The garden at the Palazzo Madama is a recreation of a Medieval garden which dated from 1402. In order to accomplish this, the museum followed instructions contained in documents dating from 1402 to 1516 which listed the types of plants and herbs that were included, as well as their original layout within the space.
This original structure included an hortus (garden), a viridarium (forest and orchard), and an iardinum domini (garden for the lord). They also added those plants that, though were not explicitly listed in these documents, were often found in gardens of this type during the 14th and 15th centuries.
The hortus would have been populated by trees, including pear and apple trees, to provide shade during the lord’s strolls. The viridarium would have been a wooded area with taller trees, and where animals such as pigs and falcons would have been kept. The iardinum domini would have been a private space for the lords, used primarily for reading and resting (I’d quite like a iardinum domini for myself, please & thank you).
Gold Colored Fox 