Thousands of years of history form a treasure trove of artistic and architectonic heritage spanning from Roman times in Torino, Rome’s Augusta Taurinorum, and throughout the region to la Belle Époque.
The most precious treasures of Piemonte are those from the Baroque palaces of the Savoy capital, the churches, the residences and the piazzas designed by Filippo Juvarra, Guarino Guarini, Ascanio Vitozzi and Carlo di Castellamonte, from Palazzo Carignano to the Basilica of Superga.
The Egyptian Museum of Torino, which has recently been renovated, is the second most important Egyptian museum in the world after Cairo Museum.If one of the pride and joys of the region is its history, the same can be said of its Contemporary heritage. Torino has a highly active network of private galleries, the Civic Gallery of Modern Art (the GAM), the Fondazione Merz and the Fondazione Rebaudengo per l’Arte. Rivoli Castle is home to the Museum of Contemporaney Art.
Attention is paid to art and to cinema: Torino has transformed the building that is the symbol of the city, the Mole Antonelliana, into the unique National Cinema Museum, one of a kind in the world. The cultural offering in Piemonte also includes events ranging from music classical, contemporary music, jazz and ethnic sounds, as well as the prolific electronic music scene – to theatre, ballet and cinema.
UNESCO awarded this same designation for architectural value to the seven Sacri Monti “Sacred Mountains” of Piemonte, which still today are major pilgrimage destinations. Sacra di San Michele is one of the religious monuments that best symbolises Piemonte. A Romanic complex of exceptional architectonic importance, built between 983 and 987, it contains important holy and lay images, frescoed on its walls or sculpted into capitals, pillars and portals. And then there is the Sanctuary of Vicoforte in Cuneo, with th e largest elliptical cupola in Europe.
The architectonic heritage supported by a rich system of museums: centuries passed under the reign of the Maison de Savoie have endowed the land with unique collections and masterpieces.