Piemonte Italia

Basilica di Superga

On the 2nd September 1706 Victor Amadeus II was on the colle di Superga (Superga hill) watching as Torino was besieged by the French troops. He then went inside the small church and, facing the statue of the Madonna, made a vow: if he achieved victory over the French, he would have a great church built in that place in her honour. The Piedmont army won, thanks also to the Austrian troops that arrived under the command of Prince Eugenio of Savoy: Torino was free. After being made king of Sicily and then of Sardinia, in 1717 Victor Amadeus II started work on the votive Temple in honour of the “Saviour’s Mother- Saviour of Turin”. The hill of Superga was lowered by forty metres, the pre-existing church was demolished and the project for the Basilica entrusted to the architect Filippo Juvarra from Messina. After 15 years of work, on 1st November 1731, he opened this extraordinary work to the public. The Basilica, designed as a mausoleum for the Savoy Family, is connected by an imaginary straight line to the Castello di Rivoli (Rivoli Castle), which had been designated as the place where the heirs of the dynasty were to be born. Built in a classically inspired style, the Basilica has a large staircase that leads to the pronaos, which is surmounted by a dome. At the sides of the main body of the building there are two magnificent bell towers, whereas the back of the building houses a museum and a tombstone in memory of the plane crash where, in 1949, the players of the “Grande Torino” (Torino football team) lost their lives, on their way back from a friendly match in Lisbon.