Duomo di San Giovanni Battista

Turin's cathedral is the city's principal church and its first Renaissance church, standing between Piazza Castello and the Royal Palace. Consecrated to John the Baptist, it has guarded the Chapel of the Holy Shroud since the seventeenth century, making it a focus of both civic and religious life.

Why it matters

Turin grew rich and powerful under the House of Savoy, yet its cathedral predates the grand baroque remodelling of the centre. Commissioned by Bishop Domenico della Rovere and built between 1491 and 1498 to designs attributed to the Tuscan architect Meo del Caprina, it introduced Renaissance architecture to the city. The pale marble facade, with its three portals, deliberately contrasted with the brick buildings around it. The church preserves a coherent Renaissance interior with late Gothic undertones beside the Savoy palace complex it came to serve. Above all, it is the church that holds the Chapel of the Holy Shroud, built expressly to display the linen that pilgrims and scholars have debated for centuries.

What to notice

The facade's clean Renaissance geometry contrasts with the baroque frontages elsewhere in the centre. The Latin-cross plan with three naves combines Renaissance clarity and lingering Gothic detail. The side chapels hold a polyptych painted by Martino Spanzotti with Defendente Ferrari, an important Piedmontese altarpiece of the late fifteenth century. The bell tower beside the cathedral is older than the church itself: it belonged to the demolished church of Sant'Andrea and was finished in 1469, later raised under a design by Filippo Juvarra in 1720. The round structure behind the choir is the drum of Guarini's chapel, evidence of the architectural connection between cathedral and royal palace.

Context and history

The cathedral was built on ground that had held three medieval churches, dedicated respectively to the Saviour, to San Giovanni Battista and to Santa Maria, which were demolished to make way for the single new building. Completed at the end of the fifteenth century, it became the seat of the archbishops of Turin. In the seventeenth century the ruling dynasty inserted the Chapel of the Holy Shroud, built between 1668 and 1694 to the design of the monk-architect Guarino Guarini, linking the cathedral to the Royal Palace and giving the relic a baroque setting of extraordinary structural daring. The chapel was severely damaged by fire in 1997 and spent two decades under restoration; it forms part of the Royal Palace and cathedral complex. The cathedral remains the seat of the Archdiocese of Turin.