The Museo Civico d'Arte Antica is an art museum located in the

Palazzo Madama Palazzo Madama might refer to: * Palazzo Madama, Rome * Palazzo Madama, Turin Palazzo Madama e Casaforte degli Acaja is a palace in Turin, Piedmont. It was the first Senate of the Kingdom of Italy, and takes its traditional name from the embelli ...

in Turin, Italy. It has a renowned collection of paintings from the medieval, Renaissance and

Baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...

periods. It reopened in 2006 after several years of restorations.

History

The museum was founded in 1934, as the heir of the Pinacoteca Regia and the Galleria Reale, which had been established in Palazzo Madama by King Charles Albert of Savoy in 1832. A Civic Museum had been founded in 1860 in the wake of the unification of Italy although, three years later, the collections were moved to another location in Turin, in Via Gaudenzio Ferrari. These were increased gradually with acquisitions from private collectors, from closed residences of the

House of Savoy The House of Savoy ( it, Casa Savoia) was a royal dynasty that was established in 1003 in the historical Savoy region. Through gradual expansion, the family grew in power from ruling a small Alpine county north-west of Italy to absolute rule of ...

, or from donations by the same family. In 1898 the collections of "ancient art" were separated from those of "modern art". The former were moved to the current location in 1934 by the director Vittorio Viale. The collection of Asian art, including rare artifacts from

Gandhara Gandhāra is the name of an ancient region located in the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent, more precisely in present-day north-west Pakistan and parts of south-east Afghanistan. The region centered around the Peshawar Vall ...

uncovered in the excavations by IsMEO at the Butkara Stupa in Pakistan, was transferred to Turin's Museum of Oriental Art in 2008.

Description

The museum includes a total of 35 rooms on four floors. The underground floor is dedicated to medieval works, the first floor to

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

and Renaissance painting, and the second floor to

Baroque works The ''One Piece'' manga features an extensive cast of characters created by Eiichiro Oda. The series takes place in a fictional universe where vast numbers of pirates, soldiers, revolutionaries, and other adventurers fight each other, using var ...

, while the uppermost floor deals with decorations. Aside from paintings and sculptures, works exhibited also include

illuminated manuscript An illuminated manuscript is a formally prepared document where the text is often supplemented with flourishes such as borders and miniature illustrations. Often used in the Roman Catholic Church for prayers, liturgical services and psalms, the ...

s (such as the

Turin–Milan Hours The Turin–Milan Hours (or Milan–Turin hours, Turin Hours etc.) is a partially destroyed illuminated manuscript, which despite its name is not strictly a book of hours. It is of exceptional quality and importance, with a very complicated histo ...

), ceramics, porcelains, maiolica and ivories (mostly of oriental origin), and gold and silver works, as well as a furniture and cloths. The 15th-century Torre dei Tesori ('Tower of the Treasures') is home to several of the museum most known works: Antonello da Messina's ''

Trivulzio Portrait ''Portrait of a Man'' is the conventional title of several male portraits by the Italian Renaissance artist Antonello da Messina. ''Portrait of a Man'' (Pavia) One such painting is in the Town Museum of Pavia, in Lombardy in northern Italy. It is ...

'', the Turin–Milan Hours, and several objects from Charles Emmanuel I's cabinet. Other works include a series of sculptures of the Dead Christ, paintings by Macrino d'Alba,

Giacomo Jaquerio Giacomo Jaquerio ( 1375 – 1453) was an Italian medieval painter, one of the main exponents of Gothic painting in Piedmont. He was active in his native Turin, in Geneva and in other localities of Savoy. Biography He was born into a family of ...

, Giovanni Martino Spanzotti, Defendente Ferrari, Antonio Vivarini,

Giulio Campi Giulio Campi (1502 – 5 March 1572) was an Italian painter and architect. His brothers Vincenzo Campi and Antonio Campi were also renowned painters. Biography The eldest of a family prominent painters, Campi was born at Cremona. His father Ga ...

, Gaudenzio Ferrari,

Gandolfino da Roreto Gandolfino d'Asti (before 1493 – after 1518) was an Italian painter, who was active in Piedmont during the early Renaissance. He worked between Asti, Alessandria and Montferrat. He was born at Asti and apprenticed under his father, Giovanni da ...

, Gerolamo Giovenone, Francesco Hayez, sculptors' and goldsmiths' works from the 8th to the 13th centuries, and Piedmontese coats of arms. The ''Camera delle Guardie'' ('Guards Chambers') houses Baroque paintings by artists such as Orazio Gentileschi (''Assumption'' and ''St. Jerome''), Giovanni Battista Crespi,

Giulio Cesare Procaccini Giulio Cesare Procaccini (1574–1625) was an Italian painter and sculptor of the early Baroque era in Milan. Biography Born in Bologna he was son of the Mannerist painter Ercole Procaccini the Elder and brother of Camillo Procaccini and Car ...

and Francesco Cairo.

Sources

External links

* * of the Palazzo Madama 1934 establishments in Italy Art museums and galleries in Piedmont Art museums established in 1934 Museums in Turin {{Italy-art-display-stub