This last week, my survey of art class took an adventure to the Palazzo Madama Museum to check out some of the baroque artworks. Palazzo Madama is one of the main buildings in Piazza Castello, probably second only to the royal residence itself. The night before our tour, it rained, leaving the air crisp and clean and leaving the ground a bit damp everywhere.
After a brief history lesson on the building, we actually took a detour and went to an old Baroque church in the Piazza whose original façade has been covered up by a newer one when Torino became the capital of Italy. Every time there has been a major shift in Torino, there is somewhat of a redecorating of the city. the first of these came when the Savoy Family moved the capital of their empire from Chambery France to Torino. This gave birth to the entire Royal palace, Via Roma addition to the city to give home to the court as they all moved to Torino. When Torino became the Capital of Italy, it redecorated itself again, trying to create a more harmonious look within the city. The 2006 Winter Olympics also caused a shift in the city as Torino has since become one of the greenest cities in Italy (despite being the auto capital of Italy. Can you imagine Detroit being the greenest city in America?), has given a facelift to some of their major buildings (the Lingotto being the main one) and, in general, injecting new life into a grey and bleak city. The Real Chiesa di San Lorenzo was the church we got to take a peak inside of and it was very interesting. Having a centralized design, it was unlike most churches I had made it inside of to this point in my life and every inch of the walls and ceilings was covered in a mural or some sort of artwork. When we first walked in the door, to the right of the lobby type space was a small place for prayer.
Once we made it into the church, we could see tons of artwork on the walls, as well as a very cool dome that I hadn't even noticed existed while in Piazza Castello before.
In each of the four corners of the church, there is a hole in the ceiling of the bottom dome that, once a year during the solstices, is illuminated, showing some more art work (needless to say, we are going to try to make it back for the spring solstice to see what is up there). 
After a few minutes of trying to take pictures of everything, we went into a side room where I was surprised to see..
The shroud of Turin. a replica actually (the original is kept at Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist in Torino (which I am hoping to get some pictures of here soon)) but a fire caused the shroud to be removed temporarily but it is now back home in Torino, last displayed to the public in 2010, where over two million people came to see it in a month and a half.
After seeing the Shroud, we made our way to the Palazzo Madama Museum. For the sake of this not being too long, I will post about that tomorrow! Have a great day!
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