Cappella della Sindone

A black-marble altar beneath a spiralling dome of overlapping arches: Guarini's Chapel of the Holy Shroud was built to enshrine the Shroud of Turin. Devastated by fire in 1997 and restored over two decades, it reopened in 2018 within the Musei Reali circuit.

Why it matters

The Cappella della Sindone is the most audacious baroque interior in Turin, designed by the priest-architect and mathematician Guarino Guarini. Its dome works like a stack of intersecting arches that appear to spiral upward toward a star of the Holy Spirit, a geometry of rare audacity. The chapel was commissioned specifically to display the Shroud, the linen venerated as Christ's burial cloth, and its altar held the reliquary urn from 1694 until 1993. When fire tore through the chapel on 11 April 1997, its reconstruction became one of Italy's great restoration sagas, completed with the altar's recovery in 2021.

What to notice

Approach from the Duomo and the Royal Palace at once: Antonio Bertola's altar, built between 1688 and 1694 to Vittorio Amedeo II's commission, was deliberately designed with two façades, one facing the cathedral and one the palace, so the relic served both court and city. The altar is a giant reliquary of black Frabosa marble crowned with gilded wooden angels and sculptures; the sculptural decoration survived the 1997 fire only because the pieces had been moved to the adjacent Sacristy. Inside, trace the dome's hexagonal rhythm and the light coming from hidden windows at the top — Guarini intended the architecture itself to be a metaphysics of light. Look for the gilded balustrades of the three choir galleries, destroyed in the fire and meticulously rebuilt during restoration.

Context and history

Guarini received the commission in the 1660s and the chapel rose between the cathedral of San Giovanni Battista and the Royal Palace over several decades. The structure stayed linked to the Shroud's history: the relic was kept in the altar urn from 1694 until 1993, when it was moved for safekeeping shortly before the fire. The blaze of 11 April 1997, during restoration works, shattered stones and scorched the dome interior. Restoration, led by architect Marina Feroggio with restorer Tiziana Sandri and historians Franco Gualano and Lorenza Santa, and executed by the Consorzio San Luca of Turin, was funded by the Ministry of Culture's Art Bonus campaign, the Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo and the Fondazione La Stampa–Specchio dei Tempi "1997" public appeal. The chapel reopened on 27 September 2018; completion of the altar's restoration in 2021 closed the chapter, twenty-four years after the fire.