Palazzo Carignano was built at the behest of Emanuele Filiberto of Savoy-Carignano, to a design by Guarino Guarini, who began construction in 1679. It is one of the most striking and imposing palaces of seventeenth-century Italy, with a curvaceous façade and cladding in simple bricks, precious and original.
The building stands in the area used as stables by Prince Tommaso, progenitor of the Cadet branch of Savoy-Carignano, and originally had a C-shaped plan open to the gardens; the current quadrangular structure is due to the addition of the nineteenth-century building constructed to house the Italian Parliament and completed in 1871, after the capital was moved to Rome.
The elliptical central hall is located in the 17th century part, formerly used for festivities, was transformed in 1848 into the hall of the First Subalpine Parliament; the palace houses in the rooms on the piano nobile the National Museum of the Italian Risorgimento and on the ground floor the apartments of the princes. With the 2011 exhibition dedicated to Legnanino, a stable tour of the Savoy-Carignano Residence was inaugurated.
The itinerary of the museum, which covers an area of about 1,000 square meters, is made up of guided tours of the atrium and the Guarini staircase, with a view of the Hall of the Subalpine Parliament, the Midday Apartment, also known as the Princes' Apartment, a series of underground rooms, the exterior and the courtyard of the palace.