august 2002
The region of Piemonte, surrounded by the Alps in the northwest of Italy, has borders with France and with Switzerland. It came to prominence under the House of Savoy, a dynasty of nobles that ruled over the juncture of the three territories from the time of the collapse of the Kingdom of Burgundy in 1003. Emmanuelle Filiberto, Duke of Savoy, made Turin his capital in 1562 and began a vast series of construction projects to demonstrate the power of the ruling house. Designed and embellished by the leading architects and artists of the time, the buildings that he and his successors created radiate out from Turin into the surrounding countryside. Piemonte diminished in importance as the influence of the expansionist Savoys grew and they moved their capital first to Florence and then to Rome. The Savoys were instrumental in the process of Italian unification, known as the Risorgimento, which began after the fall of Napoleonic France, and was initially opposed by the Austrian Hapsburgs in the north, the French Bourbons in the south and by the Papal States. After Garibaldi displaced the Bourbons from Sicily in 1860, he took his insurgency to the mainland and proclaimed the Turin-born Victor Emmanuel of the House of Savoy king of Italy in the city of Naples. Victor Emmanuel’s grandson’s later appointment of Mussolini as prime minister led to the fascist dictatorship which lasted for two decades before the modern Italian republic was established by referendum in 1946.
Turin was first established as a Roman settlement by Caesar Augustus in 28BC and their characteristic grid system is still evident today. After the fall of the Roman Empire, it was conquered first by the Lombards and then by the Franks, both tribes of Germanic descent, before being annexed by the Savoys. The Via Roma is the city’s central spine, opening onto the elegant space of the Piazza San Carlo which is lined by symmetrically porticoed buildings and which has at its centre an equestrian statue of Emmanuelle Filiberto. The entrance to the Piazza is guarded by twin baroque churches and languishing nude statues representing Turin’s encircling rivers, the male Po and the female Dora. The red brick arch of the Porta Palatina is the original north gate of city’s Roman walls. Underneath the Piazza Statuto, a grassy square at the western end of the Via Garibaldi, is a cemetery known as the Vallis Occisorum where the Romans buried the bodies of the executed. The modern city’s most symbolic landmark, visible from most of the surrounding countryside, is the Mole Antonelliana, originally intended as a synagogue but today housing the Museo del Cinema. Named for the architect who began its construction in 1863, its 548 feet make it one of highest masonry structures in Europe.
The city has long been reputed to be a centre for the occult and is alleged by some to be the hidden home of the Holy Grail. It lies on the forty-fifth parallel and, in the esoteric tradition, is said to form a white magic triangle with Lyon and Prague. Believers point to its distinctively arcane statuary, to mysterious detailing on its buildings, to its Roman gates constructed precisely on the cardinal points, to its protective ring of water and to its long association with famous thinkers. The city has, over the years, been home to writers like Italo Calvino and Umberto Eco, to the theologian Erasmus, and to philosophers including the Marxist Antonio Gramsci, the existentialist Friedrich Nietzsche and the romanticist Jean Jacques Rousseau. Its Cathedral of St John the Baptist, or Duomo, stands in the Piazza San Giovanni and contains the eponymous shroud reputed to be the burial cloth of Christ. Radiocarbon tests have suggested that it is a medieval forgery but the image of the man imprinted on it is certainly striking and, while the objects provenance remains an ongoing dispute, the church officially makes no pronouncements either way, saying that it is a matter for the faithful to decide. The Museo Egizio has the second largest collection of Egyptian antiquities outside of Cairo. It incorporates the collection of Bernardino Drovetti, onetime French consul to Egypt, which includes the most ancient known copy of the Book of the Dead. It also has a large selection of valuable papyri which were studied by Jean-François Champollion as part of his deciphering of hieroglyphics and his subsequent work to translate the Rosetta stone.
Piemonte is renowned for its cuisine and gastronomic culture and Turin has been responsible for giving the world vermouth, grissini and zabaglione. The Piemontese lowlands are particularly fertile and are celebrated for their wines. Barbera, made in the area around Monferrato which includes some vineyards with century old vines, is a robust and fruity red. Barolo, made from Nebiollo grapes grown on clay terrains in the province of Cuneo, is famously said to taste of tar and roses. Turin is also known for its gianduiotto, a form of chocolate where the cocoa is mixed with ground hazelnut. Traditionally it combines fruity South American cocoa beans, made smoky by being roasted over olive wood, together with sweet hazelnuts from the hills around the southern Piemontese town of Alba. The Swiss and Austrian chocolatiers have been coming to Turin for their training ever since the production and export of chocolate was regulated by specific royal decree in 1678. Torinese cafes commonly sell a drink known as bicerin, which is a heady mixture of hot chocolate and espresso. The cafes here frequently roast and blend their own cocoa beans in much the same way as others do elsewhere with coffee.
In 1706, when the French invaded looking to annex Piemonte and laid siege to Turin, the then Duke of Savoy climbed to the top of the city’s second highest hill to survey his army’s defensive position. He is reputed to have made a vow to a statue of the Madonna there that if he prevailed he would construct a church dedicated to the Holy Mother of Graces. The spectacular basilica of Superga is located on that site today. Its terrace affords breathtaking views across the city below with the wings of the Alps rising behind. The Corinthian columns of its portico, flanked by twin bell towers, front a circular transept whose interior is richly adorned with stuccos and marble work. A plaque at the rear testifies to the 1949 crash of an airplane into the base of the structure which killed all of the members of the Grande Torino football team who were on board at the time. The mausoleum in the basilica contains the remains of many of the later rulers of Savoy and, on the 250th anniversary of the battle, an urn containing the bones of soldiers from Austria, France, Piedmont and Spain was added in a ceremony to mark the renewed friendship between those peoples.
Mount Pirchiriano stands at the mouth of the Susa Valley which is located to the east of Turin. Neolithic remains have been found on the mountain, which was originally named by Celtic settlers and was later established as a consecrated site by the Romans. The Sacra di San Michele, perched on the summit, was one of the principal Benedictine monasteries of medieval times. It was known as an important stopping place for pilgrims and at one point had jurisdiction over 176 other sites including Mont St Michel in Normandy. Built in the 10th century, the monastery is a superbly preserved example of the Romanesque style of architecture; it was the inspiration for the setting of Umberto Eco’s “The Name of the Rose”. The foundations seem almost to grow out of the rock and a substantial part of the structure actually projects over the precipice on a seemingly precarious support system that is an impressive feat of ancient engineering. Some 243 stone-cut steps lead up under a series of giant flying buttresses to the elaborately carved Zodiac Doorway. Beyond that, the atmosphericaly dark Grand Staircase of the Dead brings you out into the main courtyard from where it can be seen that the Sacra is actualy compossed of several buildings constructed on different levels. The crypt is worth a visit for its many sculptures and relief carvings, and a five metre bronze has recently been added outside which depicts the archangel Michael battling a winged devil. A small community of monks live on in the Sacra today and, despite the tourists, it remains a very quiet, peaceful and spiritual place.