Castello di Agliè
A Savoy residence in the Canavese, home of the San Martino family and later of the Dukes of Genoa, a state museum since 1939 and a UNESCO site since 1997.
The Castello di Agliè, also known as the ducal castle, is a Savoy residence overlooking the village of Agliè, in the Canavese, about forty kilometres from Turin. It has more than three hundred rooms, a park and gardens on several levels, and since 1997 has been part of the Residences of the Royal House of Savoy inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List.[1][2] Built as a fortress of the San Martino counts, it passed to the House of Savoy in the eighteenth century and later became the favourite residence of the Dukes of Genoa, until it was sold to the Italian state in 1939.[1][3]
From medieval stronghold to the San Martino family
The place is first recorded in 1141 as a possession of the San Martino counts of Rivarolo and Agliè; the castle was destroyed and rebuilt several times and in 1536 suffered a siege and sack.[3][4] The turning point came with Filippo San Martino d'Agliè (1604-1667), a man of letters, author of court ballets and favourite of Christine of France, the Madama Reale who ruled the duchy after the death of her husband Victor Amadeus I in 1637. Arrested by the French on New Year's Day 1640 and imprisoned at Vincennes on Richelieu's orders, he returned to Piedmont after the cardinal's death, in December 1642; in 1646 he became Grand Master of Works.[5] In the 1640s he began turning the old stronghold into a noble residence, on the remains of the twelfth-century castle; according to Mole24, the design was entrusted to Amedeo di Castellamonte.[1][2]
The heart of the building survives from that phase: the Salone d'onore, or ballroom, entirely frescoed by Giovanni Paolo Recchi and his workshop with the deeds of King Arduin of Ivrea.[1][2]
The Savoy eighteenth century
In 1764 King Charles Emmanuel III bought the castle for his son Benedict Maurice, Duke of Chablais.[1][3] Over roughly a decade the architect Ignazio Birago di Borgaro remodelled the entire complex, integrating it with the village: this gave rise to the square and the new parish church with its bell tower, linked to the palace by a covered two-storey gallery that still exists.[1][4] The Sala delle cacce, the large entrance hall, received sober stucco trophies by Giuseppe Bolina in 1770; the interior frescoes are also due to C. F. Beaumont.[1][6] The 1929 Enciclopedia Italiana dates the rebuilding later and sums it up as follows:[7]
"a grand castle rebuilt in 1775 to designs by the architect Borgaro, altered in 1825 by King Charles Felix, through the work of the architect Borda"
The park was laid out in the French manner by Michel Benard, director of the Royal Gardens, with a circular lake; facing the south front opens the exedra of the Fontana dei Fiumi, with sculptural groups by the Collino brothers depicting the Orco, the Malone and the Dora rivers.[1][3]
From poorhouse to residence of the Dukes of Genoa
During the French domination the residence was stripped of its most valuable furnishings and used as a poorhouse.[1][2] The Savoys recovered it in 1823: King Charles Felix and his wife Maria Cristina of Bourbon had it modernised by the architect Michele Broda, added a small theatre and fitted out the Sala Tuscolana, with the archaeological finds that the queen played a decisive part in collecting.[1][2][4] Between 1838 and 1840 the landscape designer Xavier Kurten transformed part of the park according to the new fashion for the romantic English garden, while to the west the Italian-style layout from the Castellamonte period survives, with little avenues and hedge-bordered flowerbeds.[1][3]
On the queen's death in 1849, the castle passed to Ferdinand of Savoy, Duke of Genoa, and became the regular residence of the Savoy-Genoa branch of the family.[1][2][7] His son Thomas, Duke of Genoa, brought there a collection of ethnographic and Oriental art objects gathered during a diplomatic journey to Asia; in the First World War his wife Isabella of Bavaria set up a small thirteen-room hospital in the castle.[1]
The museum and the television series
In 1939 the Savoy-Genoa heirs sold the castle to the state, which turned it into a museum of about three hundred rooms with their original furnishings.[1][4] The museum describes that choice as follows:[1]
"the castle was destined to become a museum of itself"
The garden was restored between 1979 and 1981.[3] In 1997 the castle entered the UNESCO site of the Savoy residences, which alongside the "crown of delights" around the capital — Venaria, Rivoli and Moncalieri — also includes the more distant residences of Racconigi, Govone, Pollenzo and Agliè; in 2010 its buffer zone was extended.[8]
The wider public knows it chiefly as Rivombrosa: in the television drama Elisa di Rivombrosa the castle played the estate of the Ristori counts, while the nearby castle of San Giorgio Canavese served as the residence of the Marchesa Lucrezia Van Necker.[9] According to Mole24, it was that series, in 2004, that made it known to millions of viewers.[2]
Today
The castle is run by the Musei nazionali del Piemonte of the Ministry of Culture; it is visited on guided tours for groups of up to twenty-five people, with separate tickets for the castle, the garden and the park, and it is closed on Tuesdays.[10] It hosts temporary exhibitions and evening events, such as the night at the museum organised on 15 July 2023 by the Turin-based association Club Silencio.[11] In the municipal territory, on via Meleto, stands Villa Il Meleto, the house of Guido Gozzano.[12]
Pages linking here
Related articles: Christine of France, Guido Gozzano, Monte dei Cappuccini
Sources
- Musei nazionali del Piemonte (Ministero della Cultura)
- Mole24 — 22 September 2021
- Comune di Agliè
- Mole24 — 5 January 2026
- Mole24 — 3 April 2026
- Treccani
- Treccani, Enciclopedia Italiana (1929) —
- UNESCO World Heritage Centre
- Mole24 — 8 September 2026
- Musei nazionali del Piemonte (Ministero della Cultura)
- Mole24 — 12 July 2023
- Comune di Agliè