ITALY: One of Europe's largest palaces reopens in Turin after massive restoration

Turin's royal palace will reopen its doors to the public this weekend after a massive restoration brought it back to some of its former glory. The Venaria Reale, the former residence of the Savoy family, is one of the world's largest palace and once rivalled Versailles in France. A royal palace almost forgotten in the mists of time has had new life breathed into it and is set to open its doors to the public on Saturday (October 13) after Europe's biggest cultural restoration project in recent times. The Venaria Reale was once the proud palace of the capital of the Italian states in Turin, northern Italy. The former residence of Italy's Savoy royal family was built by the Duke of Savoy in the 17th century on hunting grounds and enlarged in the 18th century when the family was given royal status. It is said that the French King Louis XIV built his palace at Versailles as a response to the grand nature of the Venaria Reale. But the fate of Turin's palace was to be a traumatic one. Often caught up in fighting between the French and the Savoy family shortly after its completion, it then fell completely into disrepair after World War Two when the complex was abandoned by the military who had been using it as a barracks. Vandals stripped the marble and stucco decoration and vagrants camped in its empty rooms, leaving only a husk of the palace's former glory. There was even talk of pulling the whole complex down. Alberto Vanelli, Director for Cultural Heritage for the Region of Piedmont, who oversaw the restoration of the palace, said: "It was a monument in a desperate condition. The roofs had collapsed, plants had grown on the few portions of roof which were still there, the floors had been removed, the paint had fallen off every wall, it gave you a feeling of desperation to look at it. One of the greatest masterpieces of the world's architecture was reduced to a really pitiful condition, as if it had just been bombed, totally destroyed," But in 1997 regional and provincial officials along with a group of historians and artists agreed to commit to the 240 million euro (340 million U.S. dollars) needed to restore the building to its former glory. Very little remains of the grand inner rooms beyond the delicate stucco-decorations of its Great Gallery, a frescoed reception room dedicated to the Roman goddess of the hunt Diana and described as one of the most beautiful rooms in the world. But each room has been restored as lovingly as possible using the latest thermography and radiograph equipment in order to be as true to history as possible. Despite its lack of opulence inside, the palace does rival Versailles in size with the complex covering 80,000 square meters (861,112 square feet), compared with the 67,000 square meters (721,182 square feet) of Versailles. "The Venaria project was born before Versailles, in 1660. Then after Versailles was built, King Vittorio Emanuele II ordered Venaria to be transformed to look like Versailles. So, there is a strong connection. The other connection is the huge size: Venaria is 120,000 square metres (1.291,669 square feet) of floors, 80 hectares of gardens, 3,000 hectares of park. It surely is one of the largest monumental complexes in the world." Certainly the dark years for the Venaria appear to be over. Once forgotten and left to crumble away the palace is now on the UNESCO World Heritage List and Turin authorities hope that a million visitors will come and visit the complex by 2011.

ITN Source | October 12, 2007

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