Touring - Piemonte Feel

Piedmont offers a wide range of cultural and museum attractions, including Savoy residences, city and national museums, ethological museums, environmental museums, and fortresses. This range covers archaeology, contemporary art, the natural sciences, cinema, decorative arts, and anthropology. An itinerary through this cultural heritage should begin in Turin, which alone houses more than 130 museums. The Egyptian Museum is one of Piedmont’s most important. It boasts a collection second only to that in Cairo. It was founded in 1824 by Carlo Felice, who acquired the collection made by the archaeologist Drovetti. The collection was enhanced with objects from the excavations made by Ernesto Schiaparelli. The present museum has a collection of over 30,000 artefacts. The National Museum of Cinema is important and unique in its kind. Located in the Mole Antonelliana, the symbol of the city, its collections bring together curious and valuable pre-cinema objects, a rich photographic archive, film equipment and accessories, advertisements, posters and set material as well as sound recordings and record cuts. The Palazzo Reale features the precious royal apartments that document the evolution of the taste of the house of Savoy. The Armeria Reale is one of the richest collections of arms in the world. This royal armoury contains medieval weapons, Napoleonic objects, and even the armature of the Savoy sovereigns.

The rest of Piedmont too offers various museums and collections. There are museums ranging from traditional painting museums to environmental museums. These museums were instituted with a specific regional law in 1995, which stipulates their purpose: “to reconstruct, bear witness to, and bring out the value of the historical memory, life, material culture, relationships between the natural and man-made environments, traditions, activities and ways that traditional settlements have marked the formation and evolution of the countryside.” The Royal Residences constitute another source of wealth for Piedmont, a circuit of extraordinary historical and artistic value, so much so that they were declared “Patrimony of Humanity” in 1997. The residences, built in the 1500s and 1600s, are among the biggest tourist attractions in Piedmont and provide the most tangible testimony of its history. These include the Stupinigi Hunting Palace, which houses the Museum of Art and Interior Design, the Ducal Castle of Agliè, which features 300 rooms and a beautiful English- and Italian-style garden, the Racconigi castle, and the Reggia di Venaria Reale, nicknamed the “Turin’s Versailles.”

• 2008 Piedmont and Turin Museum Season Ticket