A Jacobite Gazetteer - Turin

Museo Nazionale del Risorgimento Italiano

Exterior

This museum is located in Palazzo Carignano, at Via Accademia delle Scienze, 5, just south of Piazza Castello. It's collections record the unification of Italy in the nineteenth century.

Room 1 (Inizio in Chiave Sabauda) recounts the history of the House of Savoy in the eighteenth century. On display is a high relief sculpture of the triumphant entry of King Victor (King Victor Emanuel I of Sardinia) into Turin in 1814. The sculpture, formerly in the staircase at the Castello di Moncalieri, is the work of Giacomo Spalla. ¹ Victor is shown on horseback leading his troops into Turin; there is a work with a similar subject-matter, but with a different composition, in the Palazzo di Citta.

Room 3 (La Dominazione Francese) contains a portrait of King Charles IV (King Charles Emanuel IV of Sardinia).

Room 5 (La Restaurazione) contains portraits of King Victor and of his wife Queen Maria Theresa. There is also a portrait of Victor's younger brother, King Charles Felix of Sardinia.

King Victor entering Turin

King Victor

The Gabinetto delle Stampe contains a number of engravings of members of the Royal Family.

The museum also two portraits of Count Vittorio Alfieri, one a copy of François-Xavier Fabre's 1793 portrait (the head only), the other a copy of Fabre's 1796 portrait. Both are believed to have been painted by Queen Louise, wife of King Charles III. ² In addition, the museum owns a self-portrait of Queen Louise inspired by the double-portrait of her and Alfieri now in the Museo Civico d'Arte Antica in Turin. ³

Count Vittorio Alfieri, by Queen Louise

The museum is currently (2009) closed for reorganizing

Telephone: 39-011-56-21-147. Official website.

Notes

¹ Giacomo Spalla was born about 1775, and died in 1834. He sculpted a bust of King Victor, but is perhaps best known for his Napoleonic bas-reliefs.

² Laure Pellicier and Michel Hilaire, François-Xavier Fabre (1766-1837) de Florence à Montpellier (Montpellier: Musée Fabre, 2008), 148 and 180. The originals of both portraits are now in the Musée Fabre in Montpellier.

³ Pellicier and Hilaire, 184.

Image 1 (King Victor entering Turin): http://www.regione.piemonte.it/cultura/risorgimento/sale.htm

Image 2 (King Victor): http://www.regione.piemonte.it/cultura/risorgimento/sale.htm

Image 3 (Count Vittorio Alfieri, by Queen Louise): http://www.regione.piemonte.it/cultura/risorgimento/imm/favre.jpg.