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Venaria Reale

A municipality in the north-western belt of Turin, born as a Baroque village designed together with the Savoy hunting palace, later a town of barracks and factories.

Image from the publication of Obiettivo News
From the publication of Obiettivo News, 2026-09-17

Venaria Reale is a municipality in the Metropolitan City of Turin, some ten kilometres north-west of the city, between the Ceronda stream and the Stura di Lanzo; it has about 32,000 inhabitants.[1] The old village of Altessano was remade in the 17th century by the House of Savoy as a planned town serving the court's hunting residence, today's Reggia di Venaria: town and palace were designed together, along a single vista that runs from the main street through the palace and on into the gardens.[2]

From Altessano to «Venaria»

The site, once called Altessano Superiore, was granted as a fief to various lords in the Middle Ages.[3] The settlement's origins go back to Roman times; according to Mole24 the turning point came in the 16th century, when the Savoys chose Altessano Superiore for a hunting lodge, and the new name comes precisely from hunting, venatio in Latin.[1] The village was modest and fragile: the parish dedicated to the Madonna, already recorded in 1607, was entirely destroyed in 1639 in a fire that struck Altessano Superiore, and the new church was finished and raised to a provostry only in 1652.[4]

In 1658 Duke Carlo Emanuele II entrusted Amedeo di Castellamonte with the design of a grand hunting palace.[5] The architect published an illustrated account of it, dated 1672 and printed in Turin in 1674.[5] In the book, which also describes the transformation of the village, Castellamonte recalled what the place had been like before the works began:[6]

«that was a small village, poorly laid out, built with crooked streets and low, rustic houses»

Amedeo di Castellamonte, Venaria Reale. Palazzo di piacere, e di caccia, Turin 1674

The same text explains that the duke decided to strip «the roughness from the name itself», renaming the place «VENARIA REALE», and that the knights and ministers of the court competed to build the palaces along the new street and squares; the sovereign gave them the land and, at his own expense, bought up the houses to be demolished.[6]

The village laid out by Castellamonte

The axis of the village is Via Maestra, today Via Mensa, which runs straight toward the palace.[7] Halfway along this straight stretch it is interrupted by Piazza dell'Annunziata, formed by two facing semicircles: on two columns stand statues of the Annunciation, and the square's plan echoes the central medallion of the Collar of the Order of the Annunziata, the highest Savoy order of chivalry.[7] Facing the square is the parish church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, whose Castellamonte-designed façade was completed in 1669.[4] In 1678 the architect also opened a straight access road from Turin, which framed the palace's central block.[5] The clock tower, at the entrance to the palace, marked the point where the village's axis passed into the courtyard of honour and then into the gardens.[8]

Fires, siege and 18th-century building works

In 1693 French troops set a fire that destroyed much of the 17th-century core.[5] Victor Amadeus II had the complex rebuilt as a royal castle: the work was entrusted to Michelangelo Garove and continued by Filippo Juvarra.[3] From about 1699 Garove planned the demolition of the 17th-century wing that separated the village from the palace.[8] The building works stopped during the war with France and resumed after the siege of Turin in 1706.[8] In 1739 Benedetto Alfieri became first architect, and he demolished the 17th-century tower and rebuilt it in new forms.[8] The village church also fell to Alfieri: it collapsed in 1753, perhaps owing to water infiltration, and was rebuilt between 1753 and 1755 with a new nave and bell tower; in 1756 the high altar was installed there, a gift from Charles Emmanuel III.[4] In 1713, next to the palace, Victor Amadeus II had meanwhile had La Mandria built, a vast estate intended for breeding the court's horses.[3]

The town of soldiers

With the arrival of the French in 1796 and the king's flight in 1798 the court abandoned Venaria, and from the start of the 19th century the palace was gradually turned into a barracks.[2] The palace's official website sums up that shift as follows: «Horses, cannons and muskets replace flowerbeds, fountains and sculptures».[2] Under Napoleonic rule the Castelvecchio too passed to the military domain, undergoing alterations that long changed its appearance.[8] In 1909 Eugenio Olivero devoted a historical-military account to the march of an artillery unit that set out from Venaria Reale for Rocca d'Anfo during the 1859 campaign.[9] Military uniforms remained within the palace through the wars of independence and the two world wars.[2] Meanwhile, on the Mandria estate, Victor Emmanuel II expanded the buildings and the Borgo Castello.[10]

The industrial 20th century

In the 20th century Venaria became a working-class town of Turin's belt: engineering, plastics and above all the textile plants of SNIA Viscosa, while new residential districts grew up around the historic centre alongside the old settlements of Altessano, Rigola and Trucco.[1] When the plants closed the town went through a long period of conversion, and the former industrial areas were transformed.[1] On 5 November 1994, during the flood that struck Piedmont, the Ceronda overflowed and a wing of the building on Via Cavallo collapsed; a plaque on the Via Cavallo bridge marks the exact spot of the collapse.[11]

Today

The restoration of the palace, carried out between 1999 and 2007 by the Ministry of Culture and the Piedmont Region with European funds, recovered 100,000 square metres of buildings; its reopening to the public in 2007 shifted the town's economy toward tourism, hospitality and cultural services.[2][1] The palace is part of the Residences of the Royal House of Savoy inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List.[1]

Next to the palace lies the La Mandria Regional Park, one of the last remnants of the lowland forest that once covered the Po plain: since it became a protected area hunting has been banned and small-scale breeding survives, with rare horse breeds such as the Bardigiano and the Avellinese at the Cascina Vittoria.[10] The town is linked to Turin by the Venaria and Rigola Stadio stations of the Metropolitan Railway Service, by the exit of the northern ring road and by buses of the Gruppo Torinese Trasporti; every year the Palio dei Borghi pits the town's historic districts against each other, and the town band dates back to 1875.[1] In 2023 ACES Europe named Venaria Reale European City of Sport for 2025.[12]

Timeline

  • — In Venaria Reale a man of about 80 dies after falling from the sixth-floor balcony of his home on Via Saragat; the local police are investigating the circumstances of the incident. → CronacaQui Torino TorinoToday
  • — An event at the Lingotto and a gala dinner at the Reggia di Venaria for the conferral of dynastic honours, with donations of up to 30,000 euros, triggers a public rift within the House of Savoy between Aimone di Savoia and Emanuele Filiberto. → CronacaQui Torino CronacaQui Torino
  • — The Royal Weekend returns to Venaria Reale on 10 and 11 October, with the second edition of the 42.195 km Royal Marathon alongside the half marathon, the new 30 km race and the traditional 10 km race, as well as the Corsa del Principino & Family for children and families. → TorinoToday Il Torinese

Related articles: Chapel of the Holy Shroud, Castello del Valentino, Christine of France, La Venaria Reale, Royal Palace, Residences of the Royal House of Savoy

Pages that link here

Sources

  1. Mole24 — 12 December 2025
  2. La Venaria Reale
  3. Treccani, Enciclopedia Italiana
  4. Mole24 — 15 December 2025
  5. Treccani, Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani
  6. Internet Archive —
  7. Mole24 — 19 December 2025
  8. Mole24 — 14 December 2025
  9. Internet Archive / Biblioteca Giuseppe Grosso —
  10. Parks.it
  11. Città di Venaria Reale
  12. Città di Venaria Reale

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