Palazzo Madama
Well Preserved Renaissance Royal Palace in Italy

Palazzo Madama e Casaforte degli Acaja is a palace in Turin, northern Italy. At the beginning of the first century BC, the site of the palace was occupied by a gate in the Roman walls. Two of the towers, although restored, still testify to this original nucleus. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the gate was used as a fortified stronghold in the defences of the city. Later the building became a possession of a secondary branch of the House of Savoy; in the early fourteenth century, they enlarged it into a castle. A century later Ludovico of Acaja rebuilt it in square shape. The form of this edifice is still clearly recognizable from the back section of the palace. In 1637 the regent for Duke Charles II Emmanuel, Christine Marie of France, commissioned the covering of the court and a revamping of the inner apartments. Sixty years later another regent, Marie Jeanne of Savoy, lived in the palace, conferring upon it definitively the nickname of Madama (Italian for Madame). She asked architect Filippo Juvarra to design a new Baroque palace in white stone, but the works halted in 1721 after only the front section had been completed. Since 1934 it has housed to the City Museum of Ancient Art.

Unesco World Heritage Site

Unesco name of World Heritage site: Residences of the Royal House of Savoy (added in 1997)

Justification for Inscription: The Committee decided to inscribe this property on the basis of criteria (i), (ii), (iv) and (v), considering that the Residences of the Royal House of Savoy in and around Turin represent a comprehensive overview of European monumental architecture in the 17th and 18th centuries, using style, dimensions, and space to illustrate in an exceptional way the prevailing doctrine of absolute monarchy in material terms.