Museums and Exhibitions in Turin City, Italy

Among the great Italian cities, Turin is one of the richest in artistic, historical and scientific museums: there are four national museums (museum of cinema, automobile, mountain, and the Risorgimento) and numerous other museums of national and international, first of all the Egyptian museum, which houses an impressive collection among the first in the world.

Turin museum system is a widespread museum, made up of the set of assets, places, buildings, spaces, sites, elements of the landscape, natural or man-made, that make up the city, interpreted and communicated as a unitary system. Turin museum system aims to preserve, increase, document and communicate knowledge of the city. Its heritage consists of contemporary places and spaces, in which it is possible to find the entire past of the city in the form of signs, traces, clues, more or less visible.

Turin museum, in the rapid, huge, radical transformations that have affected the city and in the accentuated mobility of its old and new inhabitants. Turin museum system was designed differently from the traditional museums of the city. As a virtual and real museum, whose collection is made up of the present city, considered both in its dimension of historical heritage to be preserved and interpreted, and as a living organism in constant change and development.

Turin museum give an answer on a cultural level, to the growing disorientation, a source of estrangement and insecurity, that the big city produces. Turin museum create a reference point for knowledge about the present city and to find out how, why and when it became such. Turin museum help recognize in his present face the presences, the traces, the clues of his past. To spread the knowledge and understanding of the city and its history. To involve citizens in the choices about its future, on the basis of a greater awareness of the places and knowledge they witness.

Turin museum system aims to involve an increasing number of subjects, in particular all citizens interested and willing to participate in the growth of the Museum by sharing their knowledge, knowledge, memories and proposing ideas, initiatives and projects. In 2015, the museum system of the Turin metropolitan area welcomed a total of 4.7 million visitors. In 2017, TripAdvisor’s “Travelers’ Choice Museums” ranking awarded the Egyptian (first), the National Cinema Museum (seventh) and the Automobile Museum (ninth), while Il Giornale dell’Arte has certified that, with reference to 2016, Venaria Museum has established itself as the fifth museum in Italy for number of visitors, the Egyptian Museum seventh and that of cinema Museum ninth.

Over View
Turin has an international level museum system, with over 50 museums present in the city and metropolitan area, which in 2017 reached a total of 5.3 million visitors. There are four national museums (Museum of Cinema, Automobile Museum, Mountain Museum, Museo del Risorgimento) and many other museums of national and international importance such as the Egyptian Museum, the ‘ Royal Armory, the Museum of Art Eastern, the Museum of Astronomy and Planetarium, the J-Museumto which was added, until 2015, the Sports Museum. Some museums have been expanded and renovated in recent years (for example the Cinema Museum, the Egyptian Museum and the Automobile Museum) or are being renovated: among these, the Luigi Rolando Museum of Human Anatomy, the Anthropology Museum and ethnography, and the Cesare Lombroso Museum of Criminal Anthropology, which will be unified in a single Museum of Man, inside the ” Palazzo degli Istituti Anatomici ” in Corso Massimo d’Azeglio.

The artistic collections of the city are very important: there are in fact works by Leonardo da Vinci, Antonello da Messina, Beato Angelico, Andrea Mantegna, but also by Van Eyck, Rembrandt, Van Dyck. For figurative art it is worth mentioning the Galleria Sabauda (one of the most important art galleries in Italy), which houses paintings for the period from the 12th to the 18th century. For modern and contemporary art there are the Civic Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art (the second largest museum of modern art in Italy, with 5,000 paintings and 400 sculptures), the Civic Museum of Ancient Art ofPalazzo Madama, the Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Foundation containing exhibitions of contemporary artists from all over the world and the Giovanni and Marella Agnelli Art Gallery and the Merz Foundation. Considering that the nearby Rivoli hosts the Museum of Contemporary Art in the homonymous castle, Turin can be considered as the most important Italian museum center for contemporary art.

The collections of ancient art, whose collection was begun by Duke Emanuele Filiberto di Savoia in the second half of the sixteenth century, are preserved in the Museum of Antiquities, which also collects the main Piedmontese archaeological remains from the Paleolithic to the Late Middle Ages. In the 1940s, the Egyptian collections that made up the Egyptian Museum, the most important in Europe (as well as the oldest in the world), were separated from the Museum of Antiquities, as the guardian of the second largest collection of Egyptian art in the world and importance after that of the Cairo Museum.

Furthermore, the opening of the MAO – Museum of Oriental Art in December 2008 allowed to host rich collections from the Near East, India, China and Japan, as well as from Central Asia.

The Accorsi Foundation is a rich private collection, now open to the public, of collectible works. Important temporary exhibitions are held at Palazzo Bricherasio and Palazzo Madama.

Important are also from the historical point of view, the National Museum of the Italian Risorgimento, at Palazzo Carignano, and the National Mountain Museum at the Monte dei Cappuccini, on the right bank of the Po. Testimonials of Turin’s history are available at the ‘ Institute Historian of the Resistance, who also manages the widespread Museum of the Resistance, deportation, war, rights and freedom.

As for the sciences, it is certainly worth mentioning the Regional Museum of Natural Sciences, among the largest in Italy in the specific sector, and the Museum of the Shroud, which illustrates to the visitor the scientific discoveries on the Shroud cloth.

To remember is the Museum of Astronomy and Planetarium of Turin, which stands next to the Astronomical Observatory of Turin in Pino Torinese, a hilltop town in the immediate vicinity of the Piedmontese capital.

Finally, it should be noted that all the museums indicated above, plus numerous others within the Piedmont Region for a total of about 200 sites, are free and unlimitedly accessible through the regional Museum Subscription, which has been developed since the 1990s to allow the use of museum sites in the area after an annual flat-rate purchase, and which in 2017 reached the important goal of over 136,000 cards sold and about 900,000 admissions to the affiliated sites.

List of Museums and galleries
The following is a list of Turin’s museums, some of which can be visited with an annual pass.

State Museums
State-run museums, through the Superintendency, the Piedmont Museum Complex and state bodies and institutions

Moncalieri Castle
Egyptian museum
National Historical Museum of Artillery
Carignano Palace
Chiablese Palace
Royal Palace of Turin
Royal Armory
Royal Library (Turin)
Sabauda Gallery
Royal Gardens of Turin
Museum of antiquities
Royal Palace of Venaria Reale
Villa of the Queen

Regional Museums
Museum of Contemporary Art of the Castello di Rivoli
Regional Museum of Natural Sciences
Palazzo Benso di Cavour

Municipal Museums
Several museums in the Turin area are managed by the Torino Musei Foundation, officially born on July 8, 2002, with the signature of the mayor Sergio Chiamparino.

Medieval village and fortress
GAM – Civic Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art
Civic Museum of Ancient Art and Palazzo Madama
MAO – Museum of Oriental Art

University Museums
Valentino Castle
Picture Gallery of the Albertina Academy of Fine Arts
Virtual Museum of the Polytechnic of Turin
“Luigi Rolando” Human Anatomy Museum
“Cesare Lombroso” Criminal Anthropology Museum
Botanical Garden
Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (MAET)

Museums of religious institutions
Museum of the Shroud
Diocesan Museum

Private museums
Italgas museum historical archive
Fiat historic center
Urban Ecomuseum of Turin
Merz Foundation
Teatro Regio Foundation
Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Foundation
J-Museum
MAUTO – “Carlo Biscaretti di Ruffia” National Automobile Museum
MIAAO – International Museum of Applied Arts Today
Museum A as an environment
MAU – Museum of Urban Art
Museum of Fantastic and Science Fiction
Le Nuove prison museum
Savings Museum
Turin Astronomy Museum and Planetarium
Fruit Museum – “Francesco Garnier Valletti” Collection
Marionette Museum
Radio and Television Museum
Tancredi di Barolo Foundation
Museum of Decorative Arts – Pietro Accorsi Foundation
Don Bosco Natural History Museum and Scientific Equipment
Ettore Fico Museum
Widespread museum of the Resistance, deportation, war, rights and freedom
Francesco Faà di Bruno Museum
Lavazza Museum
National Cinema Museum
National Mountain Museum “Duca degli Abruzzi”
National Museum of the Italian Risorgimento
Pietro Micca Museum
Reale Mutua Historical Museum
Naturalistic Museum “Pietro Franchetti”
Stupinigi hunting lodge
Bricherasio Palace
Falletti Palace in Barolo
Living Art Park – Experimental Center of Contemporary Art
Giovanni and Marella Agnelli Art Gallery
Royal tombs of the House of Savoy

Projects and activities
Turin museum system has created and aims to develop multiple activities in partnership with local and protection bodies, universities, museums, research institutes, cultural associations, organizations and companies, experts, scholars and citizens. Through the “construction sites” the work of Turin museum system continues and the wealth of information on the places, events, themes and subjects of Turin and its history is increased. The initiatives – exhibitions, meetings, study seminars, conferences and urban walks – and the projects are aimed at spreading knowledge of the city.

Construction sites
The construction sites are research projects, carried out in collaboration with the Divisions – Directions and Sectors – Services of the City, the Circumscriptions, territorial and protection bodies, museums, research institutes, associations and bodies responsible and conservators of knowledge of the city. Since the end of 2009, territorial construction sites have been activated, dedicated to portions of the city, and thematic construction sites, to explore significant topics in the history and development of Turin.

The result of the research and studies conducted by the working groups, which for years have been involved in the conservation and enhancement of the city’s heritage, has flowed into the museum and constitutes its constantly growing collection.

Turin: History of a city
About 600 cards and thousands of images on places, themes, subjects, events, significant objects to outline the history of Turin from Before the city to the future city. The research site provided the material for the multivision, for the virtual and permanent exhibition Turin: history of a city, for the Turin museum system database.

The school patrimony
285 cards dedicated to the elementary, middle and high schools of the city and to issues relating to the evolution of education in Turin tell the phases of growth and consolidation of the urban fabric.

Barrier of Milan
200 cards illustrate a portion of the territory in the Milan barrier affected by the Variant 200 to the General Town Plan and by the project for line 2 of the Metro: homes, bowls, cinemas and urban fabrics.

The places of memory of the social saints
30 cards dedicated to places that bear traces of the work of lay people and religious, an expression of the solidarity tradition of the city.

The military heritage
150 cards describe places and characters linked to military architecture – detention structures, barracks, fortifications – through which to interpret part of the current city physiognomy.

The constituencies
The cards on the various districts provide an overview of the city, the neighborhoods that make it up and their history.

Plug 3
100 factsheets tell the area that for years has hosted historic factories, leisure and mutual associations: an area of the city that is the protagonist of urban transformation and contamination between contemporary spaces and pre-existing ones.

The industrial heritage
500 factsheets tell the birth of industry in Turin and its evolution: places, companies and people who have contributed to building the physiognomy of the city and significant events in the history of industry and work.

The places of memory 1938-1948
The cards are dedicated to places, characters and events related to the memory of the second war conflict and the period from the issuing of racial laws to the promulgation of the Constitution.

The events of the Risorgimento
150 factsheets on the events of the Italian Risorgimento that make up a section of the online exhibition The Risorgimento is here.)

Places of culture
100 factsheets tell the places of production, conservation and enhancement of culture: museums, archives, libraries, institutes and cultural centers, places of higher education.

The places of memory of the Risorgimento and the monuments
50 cards dedicated to the tombstones that, throughout the city, pay homage to events and personalities linked to the Risorgimento in Turin. 180 cards describe the main monuments of the city.

The sport
100 factsheets outline the history of sport and its evolution in Turin: spaces that have been transformed over time – or that currently have changed their intended use – and those that still host sports facilities today.

The Turinese in the streets and squares of the city
The first 600 Turinese who find space in the museum are citizens who lived and worked in Turin: the trace of their work is preserved in the toponyms of the city streets.

150 themes and events in the history of Turin
One hundred and fifty themes and events that allow you to retrace the history of the city. The research site has enriched the files of Turin: history of a city

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Economic and popular housing
100 cards on the topic of social housing, varied and differentiated by typology, chronology and actors: IACP neighborhoods, municipal public housing, houses built for specific workers, housing complexes, workers’ villages and building cooperatives.

Enhancement of the territory around the Dora
60 cards tell the territory around the Dora River through the description of villas, farmhouses, public baths, industrial establishments, cultural centers that characterize the area, once characterized by factories and factories around which populous villages have developed.

Vertical Turin
50 factsheets dedicated to the tall buildings built in Turin between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: an in-depth study of the physiognomy of the city through the historical – urban planning aspects relating to the theme and the activity of the designers active in that period.

Pierluigi Nervi in Turin
The cards describe the work of Pierluigi Nervi and the main characteristics of structural engineering in Turin through construction sites, extensions, transformations. The contents illustrated include Torino Esposizioni and the Palazzo del Lavoro, as well as some unfinished projects.

Guide to the farms
Over 100 cards with more than 1000 images of iconographic equipment return the traces of an extraordinary widespread architectural heritage: The farmsteads of the plain in Turin. Partly grouped in a focus.

Places of Music
Turin museum system took the opportunity of the well-known musical event to introduce its visitors and the public of MITO SettembreMusica to its visitors and the public of MITO SettembreMusica, together with the unusual ones (MITO per la città). The old and new cards can be reached both from www.Turin museum system.it and from www.mitosettembremusica.it and the collaboration with MITO SettembreMusica is renewed every year

The Bridges
The cataloging of the Turin river crossings was completed, enriched by the photographs of the visitors who participated in the “Bridges with a view” competition game launched on the Facebook and Twitter pages. Some cards have been highlighted

Bombing – War damage
The construction site took place as part of the Mutual solidarity and ancillary work program carried out by the City of Turin with Compagnia di San Paolo. It produced a mapping of the main bombed buildings of the city starting from the damage detection documents and historical photos of the fund of the Aircraft Protection Office. War damage: religious buildings, industries, schools, places of culture.

Discover palazzo door
The Committee, as the local development agency of Porta Palazzo, engaged in a tourism promotion project of the area, has created Discover Porta Palazzo (www.scopriportapalazzo.com). Turin museum system has made available its in-depth information sheets on “places and architecture”, which can be reached directly from the Scopriportapalazzo site.

Plans and views of Turin
100 cards of geographical maps, topographic plans and views belonging to the cartographic fund of the Turin civic libraries. The cards are searchable with the tag “cartography” and have been highlighted with a focus.

Peace and the city
To celebrate the International Day of Peace (21 September), established in 1981 by the General Assembly of Nations, Turin museum system has proposed a focus by involving associations, people and institutions operating in the sector of peace, rights, international cooperation, fight against mafias, discrimination, poverty, social exclusion and violence in all its forms.

The archaeological map
The result of the work, undertaken in 2012, is a new version of the archaeological map, i.e. a revision of the precious map by d’Andrade, suitably geo-referenced, enriched with the data that emerged from the most recent investigations, closely linked to the files of the Turin museum system cards). The map can be consulted in the form of mapservices on the Geoportal of the Municipality of Turin, through the SIT Viewer, the Geoportal webGis, in the thematic category “Bonded assets – Protected sites – Archaeological”.

That silence is not silence
The volume That silence is not silence. Civic memory of the fallen of the Resistance. New edition edited by Nicola Adduci, Barbara Berruti, Luciano Boccalatte, Andrea D’Arrigo, Giuliana Minute © 2015 edition Museo diffuso della Resistenza – Istoreto, has been declined in the language possible for Turin museum system and made available online. For the tombstones, 221 cards / places were made, grouped into 3 themes and 13 itineraries. The gravestones are searchable on the map, browsing by categories and choosing “gravestone”; in the catalog, by “tag” and typing “resistance gravestones”.

Long live Free Italy.
On the occasion of April 25, within the urban project on the public domain, the Turin Civic Libraries, the Polytechnic of Turin, the University of Turin, the Teatro Nuovo have chosen to highlight the story of the martyrs of Martinetto, shot April 5, 1944. Turin museum system has created a focus on the subject by enriching the database with about ten cards.

“Habitat” the walls painted by Millo in Barriera di Milano
About 15 cards return to Turin museum system the Habitat project with which Millo, an Apulian street artist, born in 1979, was chosen with the B.ART.

Pictures of change
The research, launched in 2015, returns on a site: www.immaginidelcambiamento.it, connected to www.Turin museum system.it, the transformations of the city starting from the second post-war period, comparing historical images with current photographs of the same places.

The markets of the Metropolitan City
Turin museum system proposes an itinerary among the markets of the Metropolitan City by following the Tourist Guide of the Markets of the Metropolitan City of Turin created by the Commerce and Productive Activities Area of the City of Turin in 2015 and reprinted in 2016.

Green in the city and around the city
The publication of the volume: Lodari, Renata (edited by), Atlante dei giardini del Piemonte, Libreria geographic, Novara 2017 allowed the updating of about 50 files and the creation of an itinerary.

Strolling in south Mirafiori
Strolling in Mirafiori Sud, on the left bank of the Sangone, is the return to the Turin Museum of the “Map of the Historical, Environmental and Cultural Heritage of the Mirafiori Sud territory” created, in paper form, by the Mirafiori Borgata Committee which for some time has promote their territory.

Women’s archives in Turin
The ArDP Archivio delle Donne in Piemonte has registered the archival funds of interest to the history of women, Turin museum system has enriched its database with about 15 records of women’s archives in the city.

Turinese farmhouses during the siege of 1706
Many farms in the Turin area were involved, in various ways, in the historical and military events connected with the siege of 1706. The construction site involved the updating and revision of about 50 cards.

Historical shops and clubs
The research site involved the publication and updating of about 150 cards, organized into themes and itineraries. The cataloging (by the Museums and Cultural Heritage Sector of the Piedmont Region) has been verified, updated and accompanied by a new photographic campaign.

Artist lights
The start of the construction site involved a photographic campaign, the images are included in the Turin museum system photo library and an event card groups them: Twenty years of artist lights. 27 October 2017 – 14 January 2018. At the same time, the cataloging of all the works was carried out.

Art in the streets of the city
The construction site on building art in Turin, still underway in 2019, has enriched the Turin museum system photo library with hundreds of images and the catalog with about 130 murals cards (from Bolle, Marzia – Davico, Luca – Scira, Rosaria, L ‘ art in the streets of Turin. Guide to the discovery of modern and contemporary art in the city, Edizioni del Capricorno, Turin 2017).

1938-2018. 80 years after the racial laws
It is an integrated project of the Polo del ‘900 coordinated by the Diffused Museum of the Resistance to raise public awareness on a crucial moment in the history of our country. Institutions and citizens have contributed to the project by proposing their own initiatives. For Turin museum system, cards on the subject and on the exhibitions in the city have been created.

The great exhibitions
In order to collect the bibliography on the major exhibitions and highlight the digitized material available online on other platforms, the site has begun which intends to produce synthetic cards / events on each of the great nineteenth and twentieth century exhibitions in Turin (in 2019 the construction site is in progress).

Turin towards an accessible city
Five focuses, entitled “Turin museum system: easy to know”, highlight some themes and itineraries in the city. They were created as part of the “Turin towards an accessible city” program with which the City of Turin joined the European Year of Cultural Heritage in 2018. Go to focus.

The city and design
Re-reading the history of design, understood in its broadest sense, is important for defining the cultural growth of Turin. Starting from the last part of the nineteenth century, the construction site has identified places, events, people who represent this process.

Masterpieces and wonders of the Monumental Cemetery
The photographic campaign (more than 200 shots) for publication: Ostorero, Carlo – Cortese, Roberto, Masterpieces and Wonders of the Monumental Cemetery of Turin, Edizioni del Capricorno, Turin 2018, was transferred to the Turin Museum in a file that documents, by images, the artistic and architectural heritage of the monumental cemetery of Turin.

2019: the civic library turns 150 years old
On the occasion of the 150th birthday, the Turin Civic Libraries are renewed and told about themselves. This was an opportunity to group, update and create files on the history of the Library, its collections and the characters that determined it.

Sculptors in Turin
About 40 biographical cards on the sculptors who worked in the city in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries with monumental and funerary works.

Initiatives and projects
Turin museum system realizes and supports initiatives and projects that spread the knowledge of the city, promotes and collaborates to implement them with other bodies and subjects active in the enhancement of the urban heritage. The projects include all the development activities of the Museum as a whole: historical research, preliminary investigations and feasibility studies, the collection and sorting of documents, images and objects, virtual and real exhibitions.

The tombstones of the Risorgimento in Turin
As part of the initiatives promoted for the celebrations of the 150th anniversary of the Unification of Italy, in 2011 the construction site for the conservation maintenance of the 50 memorial plaques and plaques placed in the city in memory of people linked to the Risorgimento was started.

An open-air exhibition at OGR
The photographic exhibition ‘Officine Grandi Riparazioni: forge of trains and lives’, born from the collaboration between the Turin Museum and the Piedmontese Railway Museum, took place in Corso Castelfidardo (along the wall of the former Carceri Nuove) and retraced, through about 150 images, the stages in the history of the large Borgo San Paolo factory.

“I saw a train fly”: from 940.030 to E 404
On the night between 11 and 12 March 2011, in the almond of Corso Castelfidardo in front of the Officine Grandi Riparazioni, a historic steam locomotive and a very modern locomotive were placed to unite the past and present of the Italian railways.

Multimedia library
The project of the multimedia library of Turin museum system, coordinated by the Civic Libraries, involved the National University Library, the Royal Library, the Libraries Sector of the Piedmont Region, the Historical Library of the Province of Turin and the library systems of the University of Turin and the Polytechnic University of Turin.

It was carried out with the financial support of the Compagnia di San Paolo. The study of a MetaOpac has been prepared which is able to allow research and access, directly from Turin museum system, to the catalogs of libraries that already adhere to the National Library System and of those universities that are not currently part of it.

The project for the digitization of publications on Turin and its history has allowed the first 520 texts to be uploaded to the site, mostly treated with the text recognition system (OCR – optical character recognition).

CLAPie
Cultures and languages of the Piedmontese Alps (CLAPie) – Linguistic atlases, ethnographic museums: multimedia paths for Alpine education is the project launched in 2012 with the Department of Humanities of the University of Turin.

The conceptual and IT platform of Turin museum system was used to create a virtual space where the various ethnolinguistic data could establish semantically pertinent correlations.

Archeology exhibition in Turin
In 2013 a memorandum of understanding with the MIBAC Regional Directorate for Cultural and Landscape Heritage of Piedmont allowed the creation of the Archaeological Map and the collaboration in the Archeology exhibition in Turin, set up in the Museum of Antiquities

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