Turin: Rise of a Royal City

Established under the Romans, Turin in northern Italy was transformed during the 17th and 18th centuries into a magnificent royal city and centre of Baroque architecture. With their idiosyncratic constructions, architects Guarino Guarini, Filippo Juvarra and their pupils were responsible not only for the layout of the city but also for some of the most imaginative solutions in Baroque design the world had ever seen.

These visionary designers lent their skills particularly to the churches and palaces of the Royal House of Savoy, whose opulent residences now constitute a UNESCO World Heritage site. Our tour takes us to many of these grand locations, including the Royal Palace of Turin with its rich art collection, Guarini’s Palazzo Carignano with its lavishly frescoed interiors, and Juvarra’s characterful hunting residence at Stupinigi. Juvarra also designed the Grand Gallery and church belonging to the Palace of Venaria, which abounds with stuccos, statues and paintings from prolific court artists.

Taking the Via Roma, we will wind our way through the architectural marvels of Turin’s churches, experiencing the wonderful acoustics of the Chapel of the Merchants beneath its frescoed ceiling. The strikingly eclectic Sanctuario della Consolata, meanwhile, features a Romanesque bell tower above an elliptical 17th century nave.

Our understanding of the developing craft of Turin’s architects is enhanced by a visit to the Superga Basilica, whose dome echoes that of St Peter’s Basilica in Rome, and which commands breathtaking views across the city towards the mountains.

We will stay throughout at the Grand Hotel Sitea, an elegant and architecturally significant establishment dating from 1925, located in the heart of Turin.

This tour will be led Alex Koller, PhD. Alex is an expert in art history and architecture, and gained his doctorate from Magdalene College, Cambridge. Born in Vienna, Alex has lived and studied in Vienna, Salzburg and Cambridge, and has travelled extensively throughout Europe and the Far East.

This tour will offer a comprehensive academic programme of study, enabling participants to gain an in-depth understanding of Turin’s Baroque history.

On this study tour, we examine the reasons for Turin’s late arrival on the scene of great Italian cities, which acquired capital status only in the middle of the 16th century.

The necessity to turn this rather provincial town into something worthy of the residence of the Dukes of Savoy saw an ambitious programme of construction that dominated the subsequent two centuries and peaked in the late 17th and early 18th centuries.

Guarino Guarini and Filippo Juvarra, neither of them originally from Piedmont, produced some of the most daring and imaginative solutions in the transition from the high to the late Baroque. In particular, Guarini’s exploration of geometrical complexities represents an apogee of Baroque ingenuity: intellectually sophisticated and at the same time visually convincing.

This applies to the numerous Baroque churches of Turin as well as the impressive collection of palaces in and around the city, many designed by Juvarra – such as the Venaria Reale, Palazzo Madama and the Palazzina della Caccia at Stupinigi.

It would be wrong, however, to reduce Turin solely to the Baroque. The city contains important examples of 19th and 20th century architecture as well: the former Fiat factory at Lingotto remains a classic of modernist industrial architecture.

- Alex Koller