The "Reliquary model of the Holy Sepulcher" (16th century, wood from Gethsemane, mother of pearl, ivory 40x45x22 cm, inv. 209) from Palazzo Madama has been on loan to the Musei Reali for the "Dossier exhibition. The Falletti di Barolo collection" since 28 November 2023 to April 7, 2024.
In early nineteenth-century Turin, the Marquises Falletti of Barolo were very active in the welfare field, showing a constant commitment to the poor classes. In particular, after having reformed the women's prisons in Turin, on 7 March 1823 Giulia Colbert founded the Rifugio, one of the first institutions to welcome and educate the so-called "unsafe women"; in the following years, the marquises expanded the first structure to create a complex of institutes united in a sort of citadel of human promotion, capable of supporting especially girls and women in difficulty.
The dossier exhibition traces the cultural interests of the two nobles through their contemporary painting and sculpture and their collecting choices, the result of a refined eclectic taste, oriented towards the most significant things the antiques market offered; the story of their travels in Italy, discovering the monuments of classical antiquity and the works of the great Italian masters of the Renaissance and the seventeenth century; their love for art, understood as a tool for education in the values of Catholic morality, growth and social redemption.
From the Musei Reali website, accessed in March 2024.
