Palazzo Madama - Civic Museum of Ancient Art offers, from 24 February to 10 April 2023 , an unprecedented look at its civic collections and their history through a selection of emblematic works, in a journey that takes the visitor from the city gate into the Medieval Court to The keys of the City in the Sala del Senato: real and allegorical keys, which allow you to open the door of Turin and then reveal its soul through what has been decided to keep over time, since the works must not only be seen, but also look. 

This is the definition of Museum approved in Prague on 4 August 2022 by the Extraordinary General Assembly of ICOM - International Council of Museums . A definition which Palazzo Madama is giving concrete application with what is programmed in the spaces of the Medieval Court and in the rooms of the noble floor, in a process of developing active citizenship that began in 2022, which continues with exhibition projects, meetings and dialogues to restore the connective tissue of contemporary Turin, as well as seeing the genesis of a precise exhibition project in the Sala Senato.

The Civic Museum of Turin was born on 4 June 1863 and since 1878 it has been given a precise task: to bear witness to the history of the city of Turin and its evolution over the millennia through a path inevitably woven into the great history of artistic craftsmanship, which gives life to the so-called applied arts.

If the path can only begin from the symbolic element of this passage – the display of the keys and the bat of the City of Turin – from here it proceeds in a story that weaves paradigmatic masterpieces and works which, despite being of absolute importance, appear for centuries shrouded in a sort of shadow, little perceived in their exceptional nature.