The favorite promenades are, during the day, under the arcades of
the Piazza del Castello and those of the Contrada del Po; and in the
evening round the ramparts of the city, or rather on the site where the
ramparts stood. The French, on blowing up the ramparts, laid out the space
occupied by them in walks aligned by trees. The fortifications of the
citadel were likewise destroyed.
In the Cathedral Church here the most remarkable thing is the Chapelle du
Saint Suaire (holy winding sheet). It is of a circular form, is inlaid
with black marble and admits scarce any light; so that it has more the
appearance of a Mausoleum than of a Chapel. It reminded me of the Palace
of Tears in the Arabian Nights.
In the environs of Turin, the most remarkable buildings are a villa
belonging to the King called La Venezia, and the Superga, a magnificent
church built on an eminence, five miles distant from Turin. In the Royal
Palace, on the Piazza del Castello, there is some superb furniture, but
the exterior is simple enough. The country environing Turin forms a plain
with gentle undulations, increasing in elevation towards the Alps, which
are forty miles distant, and is so stocked with villas, gardens and
orchards as to form a very agreeable landscape. From the steeple of the
Superga the view is very fine.
In the University of Turin is a very good Cabinet d'Histoire naturelle,
containing a great variety of beasts, birds and fishes stuffed and
preserved; there is also a Cabinet of Comparative Anatomy, and various
imitations in wax of anatomical dissections. Among the antiquities, of
which there is a most valuable collection, are two very remarkable ones:
the one a beautiful bronze shield, found in the Po, called the shield of
Marius; it represents, in figures in bas-relief, the history of the
Jugurthine war.[76] This shield is of the most exquisite workmanship. The
other is a table of the most beautiful black marble incrusted and inlaid
with figures and hieroglyphics of silver. It is called the Table of Isis,
was brought from Egypt and is supposed to be of the most remote antiquity.
It is always kept polished. Among the many valuable pieces of sculpture to
be met with here is a most lovely Cupid in Parian marble. He is represented
sleeping on a lion's skin. It is the most beautiful piece of sculpture I
have ever seen next to the Apollo Belvedere and the Venus dei Medici; it
appears alive, and as if the least noise would awake it.[77]
Turin used to be in the olden time one of the most brilliant Courts and
cities in Europe, and the most abounding in splendid equipages; now very
few are to be seen. When Piedmont was torn from the domination of the House
of Savoy and annexed to France, Turin, ceasing to be the capital of a
Kingdom, necessarily decayed in splendor, nor did its being made the Chef
lieu of a Prefecture of the French Empire make amends for what it once
was.
