Royal Palace of Turin

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Palazzo Reale, Turin: the facade (1646–60). (The top of the dome of the Chapel of the Holy Shroud is visible on the left of the image.)

Royal Palace of Turin or Palazzo Reale, was the royal palace of the House of Savoy, built for the Madama Reale Christine Marie of France in the seventeenth century.

Turin, today the capital of Piedmont, was a capital of the House of Savoy from the 12th to the 19th centuries and the Royal Palace contains much evidence of their aristocratic lifestyle. The royal family resided in the palace from 1645. Its rooms are decorated with rich tapestries and a collection of Chinese and Japanese vases. The Royal Armory houses an extensive array of arms, including examples from the 16th and 17th centuries. The Scala degli Forbici is a much-admired staircase by Filippo Juvarra.

A traveller in 1765 wrote of the palace:

The furniture matches the beauty of the apartment; one notices there, among other things, candle holders whose reflectors are mirrors set in solid silver frames worked with much taste. We only make this remark however because this piece of furnishing is very much in use in Italian apartments, ordinarily it is placed around the periphery of the room to throw more light there.

The Chapel of the Holy Shroud, with its spiral dome, was built in the west wing of the palace, joining the apse of the cathedral of St. John the Baptist, to house the famous Shroud of Turin which belonged to the family from 1453 until 1946.