PUNTOELINEA BLOG STORY

This is the ambitious new project launched by the head of the magnificent restored Savoy palace in Venaria estate near Turin, that has always been the model for Versailles and it’s now under UNESCO as part of humanity's cultural heritage: the interesting idea is to bring together Italy's greatest masterpieces under a single roof.

The exhibition will showcase 150 top works, starting from Leonardo Da Vinci's “Mona Lisa” to Michelangelo's “Pietà”, and it will be timed in order to coincide with the 2011 celebrations marking 150 years since Italian unification. The newly appointed head of the consortium, that runs the Venaria hunting lodge near Turin, opened to the public last October, is Fabrizio Del Noce and the project has been unveiled in the last months during his first official visit to the recently restored site, when he declared ''Venaria is becoming a remarkable royal residence on a par with those of Versailles and St Petersburg, but it really needs a breakthrough event, able to carry it onto the world stage”. Del Noce hopes that the planned ''mega-exhibit'' will reel in tourists with the creme de la creme of Italian art history.

In fact the Venaria site has not yet gained the international renown it deserves, even if its opening arrived following an eight-year and 200-million-euro restoration, as it had been virtually abandoned for two centuries. Then refurbishment works began in 1999 to give this estate back to the public with its 80 hectares of geometrically laid-out gardens, that surround it, the largest renovation project in Europe of recent years: the estate is now transformed from neglect and anonymity into a household name in Italy.

The Venaria estate is often called the Italian Versailles because French King Louis XIV copied it when he had to build his own country residence outside Paris. The Reggia was completed in 1663, but was then destroyed in 1693 by French troops who invaded the Savoy kingdom and only 15 years later it was rebuilt, with a citrus grove and a church, the chapel of Sant'Uberto, that is considered one of the masterpieces of the Italian Baroque.
For almost a century also the Savoys used the lodge, until the end of the 1700s when Napoleon's troops arrived and after that point the estate was allowed to deteriorate: in a first time served the Savoy family as a stable, and later Hitler's officers used it as a barracks. By the 1960s the Reggia and the stables had deteriorated to such a point that they provided unofficial homes for hundreds of poor migrant workers from southern Italy.

Waiting for this 2011 ''mega-exhibit'' Venaria estate has meanwhile various series of other big shows lined up, including one spotlighting ancient Egyptian treasures opening next January.

(by Loredana Grandi)