Turin was the capital of the Dukes of Savoy, the first capital of unified Italy and the birthplace of the Italian car industry. Since 1578 it has kept the Holy Shroud, the most studied piece of cloth in the world. Twelve stops between the city's Roman gate, the cathedral of the Shroud, Guarini's dome that survived the fire, the palace of the Savoys, the square of the two Madamas, the tower that was meant to be a synagogue, the parliament where the Kingdom of Italy was born, the Egyptian museum that Champollion studied, the room where FIAT came into being, the engineers' district, the factory with a test track on its roof and the hill where the Savoys kept a wartime vow. Approximate audio duration: 23 minutes.
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Turín: la ciudad que fundó Italia, guardó el Sudario e inventó la FIAT
Turín fue la capital de los duques de Saboya, la primera capital de la Italia unificada y la cuna de la industria automotriz italiana. Acá se guarda desde 1578 la Sábana Santa, el lienzo más estudiado del mundo. Doce paradas entre la puerta romana de la ciudad, la catedral del Sudario, la cúpula de Guarini que se salvó del fuego, el palacio de los Saboya, la plaza de los dos Madamas, la torre que iba a ser una sinagoga, el parlamento donde nació el Reino de Italia, el museo egipcio que estudió Champollion, el salón donde se firmó el nacimiento de la FIAT, el barrio de los ingenieros, la fábrica con una pista de pruebas en el techo y la colina donde los Saboya cumplieron una promesa de guerra. Duración aproximada de audio: 23 minutos.
Tour stops
12 stops · ~23 min of audio · 20.58 km on foot (~5 h 10 min walking) · about 5 h 45 min in total
You are standing before two sixteen-sided brick towers joined by an arched wall. This is the Porta Palatina, one of the best preserved Roman gates in northern Italy. It is around two thousand years old.
Before the Romans, a Celtic-Ligurian people called the Taurini lived on this plain. In 218 BC Hannibal came down from the Alps with his army and destroyed their main settlement.
The Romans founded a colony here in the age of Augustus. They called it Augusta Taurinorum. It was a rectangular camp, with streets crossing at right angles.
Look at a map of Turin and you will see that grid is still…
2
The Cathedral of the Shroud
You are standing before a plain white marble facade with three doors. This is the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist, built between 1491 and 1498. It is the only major Renaissance church in a city that later became thoroughly Baroque.
Inside, in a side chapel, lies Turin's most famous object. It is a linen cloth about four and a half metres long and one metre wide. On it, very faintly, you can see the figure of a man, front and back, with marks of wounds.
The Shroud first appears in documents around 1350, at Lirey, a village in France. In 1453 it passed to the Dukes of Savoy, who kept it at…
3
The Dome That Survived the Fire
Look up, behind the cathedral. That dark dome, like a pine cone of stacked arches, belongs to the Chapel of the Holy Shroud. It was built to house the cloth, between the cathedral and the royal palace.
Its architect was Guarino Guarini, a Theatine priest who was also a mathematician. The chapel was finished in 1694. Inside, it is almost entirely black marble.
Look at the dome from inside, if you can go in. Rows of small arches overlap in hexagons, each one rotated over the last. As your eye rises they shrink and let in the light, ending in a star.
On the night of 11 April 1997 a fire broke …
4
The Palace of the Savoys
You are facing a long, severe facade behind a railing topped with statues of the Dioscuri on horseback. This is the Palazzo Reale, home of the House of Savoy for more than two centuries.
The Savoys were an Alpine family, with lands on both sides of the mountains. Their capital was Chambéry, in today's France. Turin was just one of their towns.
Everything changed with Emmanuel Philibert, a duke who had made his career as a general serving Spain. In 1557 he won the Battle of Saint-Quentin for Philip II. With the peace of 1559 he recovered his lands, which the French had occupied.
In 1563 he m…
5
A Castle with Two Faces
You are in Piazza Castello, the heart of Turin. In the middle of the square stands a strange building: from one side it looks like a Baroque palace, from the other like a medieval castle with towers. This is Palazzo Madama.
Walk around it and you will see the city's entire history stacked in one building. Its core is a Roman gate on the eastern side of the city. In the Middle Ages it was turned into a castle, with round towers.
The white facade facing the square was designed by Filippo Juvarra between 1718 and 1721. It is a stone stage set, with a monumental staircase inside.
The name comes…
6
The Synagogue That Became a Tower
Look up. That square dome ending in a needle-thin spire is the Mole Antonelliana, the symbol of Turin. It is 167.5 metres tall. It even appears on the Italian two-cent euro coin.
It was not born as a monument. In 1848 King Charles Albert granted civil rights to the Jews of the kingdom. Turin's Jewish community decided to build a great synagogue, and in 1863 hired the architect Alessandro Antonelli.
Antonelli had other ideas. He kept raising the building, far beyond the plan. Costs soared and work stalled.
The Jewish community eventually handed the building over to the city, in exchange for …
7
Where the Kingdom of Italy Was Born
You are facing a brick facade that ripples like a wave. This is Palazzo Carignano, another work by Guarino Guarini, the architect of the Shroud's dome. It was begun in 1679.
Victor Emmanuel II was born in this palace in 1820. Forty-one years later he would become the first king of Italy.
From 1848 the Chamber of Deputies of the Kingdom of Sardinia sat here. It was the parliament of the small state that drove unification, with Camillo Cavour as its central figure.
When Lombardy, Tuscany, Emilia, the south and Sicily joined in 1860, the old chamber was no longer big enough. A temporary hall w…
8
Egypt in Piedmont
You are in front of the Academy of Sciences palace, a Baroque brick building. Inside is the Museo Egizio, the oldest museum in the world devoted entirely to ancient Egypt. Many consider it the most important after Cairo's.
It all began with a Piedmontese, Bernardino Drovetti. He had served in Napoleon's army and became French consul in Egypt. There he gathered thousands of objects: statues, sarcophagi, papyri, mummies.
In 1824 King Charles Felix bought his collection and brought it to Turin. That same year Jean-François Champollion arrived, the man who had just deciphered hieroglyphs. He spe…
9
The Room Where FIAT Was Born
You are on Via Lagrange, facing Palazzo Bricherasio, a noble palace with a discreet facade. Take a good look, because Turin's second life began here.
After losing its status as capital, the city was battered. It lost the court, the ministries and thousands of jobs. It had to find something else to live on.
On 11 July 1899, in this palace, a group of aristocrats and businessmen signed the founding deed of a company to build cars. They called it Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino. Its initials spelled a word: FIAT.
The host was Count Emanuele Cacherano di Bricherasio, a car enthusiast. Among…
10
The Engineers' District
You are in Crocetta, a district of broad tree-lined avenues, villas and elegant early twentieth-century buildings. In front of you stretches the main campus of the Politecnico di Torino.
Crocetta grew as Turin was becoming an industrial city. Professionals, managers and middle-class families who prospered with the new economy came to live here.
Look at the facades of the houses around you. Many show touches of Liberty style, the Italian version of Art Nouveau: curving ironwork, flowers, softly shaped windows. Turin was one of the capitals of that style in Italy.
The Politecnico is the other…
11
The Factory with a Track on the Roof
You are facing the Lingotto, a huge concrete building, long and low, five storeys high. It is about half a kilometre from end to end. It was FIAT's great factory.
It was built between 1916 and 1923, designed by the engineer Giacomo Mattè Trucco. Agnelli had visited Ford's plants in the United States and wanted something similar in Turin.
The idea was a vertical assembly line. Raw materials came in at ground level. Floor by floor, the cars were put together. And at the end they came out finished at the top, on the roof.
Up there is a test track with banked curves, like a racing circuit. Bran…
12
The Vow on the Hill
You are at the top of the Superga hill, more than six hundred metres up, facing a great Baroque basilica with a columned portico and a tall dome. Below lies Turin, and behind it, on clear days, the whole arc of the Alps.
In 1706 the French army was besieging Turin. The city held out for months. At the end of August a miner in the Piedmontese army, Pietro Micca, blew up an underground gallery to stop the enemy's advance and was killed in the blast.
According to tradition, Duke Victor Amadeus II and his cousin, Prince Eugene of Savoy, climbed this hill to observe the French lines. Here the duk…
How long does the "Turin: the City That Made Italy, Kept the Shroud and Built FIAT" audio tour take?
It has about 23 minutes of audio across 12 stops and a 20.58 km walking route (~5 h 10 min on foot). Plan roughly 5 h 45 min in total, or split it up: you can pause and resume anytime.
Where does the tour start?
At stop 1, "The Roman Gate" (coordinates 45.0748, 7.6847). The app guides you from stop to stop with a map.
Is it free?
Trevurs is a free app for iOS and Android. There is also an optional Premium version, from USD 1.99, with unlimited offline downloads, access to every tour and no ads. It also helps keep an independent app alive.
Why use an audio tour instead of a guided group tour?
No group to keep up with and no guide to wait for. Start at any time of day, on your own schedule. Go at your own pace: pause, rewind or skip any stop. No need to commit 2 or 3 hours to a single tour: do one stop or the whole route. Works offline once downloaded.
What languages is this audio guide available in?
This tour is available in Spanish, English, Portuguese, French, Italian. Switch languages anytime from inside the app.
Do I need wifi to listen to this tour?
No. Download the tour over wifi before you go, then listen without any data connection.
How do I access this tour?
Download Trevurs on iPhone (App Store) or Android (Google Play), then open Turin and pick "Turin: the City That Made Italy, Kept the Shroud and Built FIAT". No account required to start.
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No wifi needed · Spanish, English, Portuguese, French, Italian
