Three euros and one hundred thirty-one winding steps leads to the observation platform atop the base of the dome of La Basilica di Superga. Only so many people are allowed to climb up at one time. For the best of times, morning. Then, the sun illuminates the snow-clad peaks of the Alps to the west and north. The city of Torino – Turin – sits far below resting on the banks of the Po River. It is a magical scene, one allowing for reflection on the utter beauty, natural and urban. The Basilica also represents the tie between an adopted city and the family that adopted it, the House of Savoy.
ELDORADO
The dreamer, the unwoken fool
In dreams, no pain will kiss the brow
The love of ages fills the head
The days that linger there in prey of emptiness, of burned-out dreams
The minutes calling through the years
The universal dreamer rises up above his earthly burden
Journey to the dead of night
High on a hill in Eldorado…
Lyrics from the opening lines of Supertramp’s Overture to their Eldorado album. Superga can easily be mistaken for the hill described. Here lies the heart of one of Europe’s great houses which rose up from the darkness of centuries past.
WHAT’S UP TORINO?
Torino’s favorite tourist destination seems to be the Cinema Museum inside the Mole tower, former 19th century synagogue for the city. Big lines form outside for those not wise enough to book online. Even those booking online must usually wait a few days before getting a spot on the elevator up to the viewing deck inside the tower. Skip the crowds and go up to the Superga for even better views.
The magnificent basilica sits atop Superga Hill 672 meters – 2,205 feet – above the sea and about 460 meters above the Po River below. The hill stands high enough to have caused one of the worst air crashes in sports history in 1949.
Returning home from a friendly match against S.L. Benfica in Lisbon, the weather in Torino was miserable with clouds down to the ground. Possible altimeter malfunction or crosswind drift pushed the plane directly into the Superga killing all 31 on board. On the north side of the Superga sits a popular monument dedicated to the dead of the Torino Football Club. Known as the Grande Torino, the football team was one of the best Italian team in history. The football team still exists today playing at the Olympic Stadium in Torino – Stadio Olimpico Grande Torino – still with Juventus as their local derby partner as they have been since 1907. Pictures of the players, flowers abound at the site of the popular monument. Estimates of a million people took to the streets for the funeral of the team, much greater than any House of Savoy funeral, it is easy to say.
Shrine at the north base of the Superga complex commemorating the loss of the Torino football club due to a plane crash here 4 May 1949.
ONE MIRACLE DESERVES ANOTHER
But the Superga results from the House of Savoy. A siege of Torino by French and Spanish forces in the summer of 1706 – War of the Spanish Succession – had the Duke of Savoy, Vittorio Amadeo II feeling a bit nervous. Watching the siege from on high here at the Superga, he made a promise to build a basilica atop the mountain if the Savoy forces came out victorious. Luckily for Savoy, they were allied with the Austrian Empire. And the greatest general of the time, an Austrian general of French and Savoy roots, Prince Eugene of Savoy, came to the scene defeating the Franco-Spanish force on September 7. The results of the battle would push Vittorio Amadeo II into the ranks of kings given the Kingdom of Sicily in the ensuing peace – forced to exchange Sicily for Sardinia in 1720, but still a king.
It took fourteen years to build the basilica. First, the mountain top needed levelling – two years. The upward transport of materials was never easy. The architect, Filippo Juvarra, was another result of the success of the House of Savoy from the war, Juvarra was from Messina in Sicily though he had been living more recently in Rome. The Basilica of Superga was his masterpiece here in Torino. He had his hand in several other churches – the Church of Santa Cristina on the south side of Piazza San Carlo being one fine example – but at exorbitant cost, the Basilica of Superga went up. Behind the basilica, a monastery erected while below, a family mausoleum for the House of Savoy.
VISITING THE BASILICA
To enter the Basilica, there is no cost. But to see the sites, well … First, you want to go up the steep spiral staircase to the base of the dome. Again, come in the morning on a clear day for the best views of the encircling Alps. Here is the heart of the Risorgimiento. There are additional costs to tour Royal Apartments and the Mausoleum. If you have seen the palaces below in the city, pass on the apartments, unless you went for the Torino+Piemonte Card in which case go full bore.
Time was of the essence for us as we opted to see the Mausoleum. Included is a quick stop at the Room of the Popes. All of the Popes of Rome have a portrait here in this room. I have the panorama to prove it before I realized photography, even with a phone, was outlawed. Notice, the Avignon Popes do not have portraits.
ROYAL TOMBS
The Royal Mausoleum lays beneath the magnificent Basilica. Here, I wish they allowed photos. Whatever reason – and there could be many – you have to rely on memory – poor – and the booklets you buy at the Basilica shop. The names of the many buried here at the Superga mean little to those of us not from Torino or Piemonte. That obscuration could probably extend even to the rest of Italy. Regardless of the press, Superga is not the end all of burial plots for the House of Savoy. First off, the timeline is simply too long – 1000-1946. The Savoyard house ends up in several places beyond the Superga.
The House went through several periods of success and retreat. Original counts end up at the Hautecombe Monastery in France – Savoy originated in France, Switzerland and alpine Italy. Here on the Superga, you find the point at which the Dukes of Savoy became kings, first of Sicily and then Sardinia. Eventually, the leaders of the House became Kings of Italy – four to be exact. Two of those kings are buried at the Parthenon in Rome. Two others, mired in the era of Mussolini’s Blackshirts and a horrible war, lie buried elsewhere. Vittorial Emanuele III is at the Santuario della Natività di Maria in Vicoforte. His son, Umberto II, lies back with the counts at Hautecombe in France.
Here, at the Superga, you find Kings of Sardinia from Vittorio Amadeo II to Carlo Alberto with a change of cadet branches with the latter. This remains a Savoy – local – family affair. It was Carlo Alberto’s son Vittoria Emanuele II who took the game to the next level becoming the King of Italy in 1860.
BEYOND THE KINGS
Besides the Sardinian kings – Vittorio Amadeo II, Carlo Emanuele III, Vittorio Emanuele I and Carlo Alberto – there is a wing for children and for queens. Cadet branches of the main royal family show up here, as well. The families of the Dukes of Genoa, a title reserved for the third son of the first King of Italy, are all here. Some from the Duke of Aosta branch – title reserved for descendants of the second son of Vittorio Emanuele II lie here, as well. And while the kings get the most prestigious monuments with cherubic angels spouting their achievements, it is in some of the simpler monuments more interesting stories lay.
CENOTAPH AND BURIAL PLOT FOR NAZI VICTIMS
Princess Mafalda was the second daughter of Vittorio Emanuele III and Elena of Montenegro. She married Philipp, Landgrave of Hesse in 1925. With the defection of Italy from the Axis powers in 1943, she was tricked into going to the German Embassy where she was imprisoned. Sent to Buchenwald, she died following an injury from a bombing raid. There is a cenotaph in her honor here. Her remains either cremated or reburied at her husband’s castle at Kronberg im Taunus near Frankfurt alongside her husband.
Not the only House of Savoy lady to see the inside of a Nazi concentration camp, Irene Oldenburg Savoy-Aosta married the second son Aimone of Emanuele Filiberto, Duke of Aosta. Her husband, also buried here, became the short-lived King of Croatia from 1941 to 1943.
He never went to Croatia, nor did he have any powers there – power withheld in the hands of the Ustaše and Ante Paveliċ. Like Mafalda, she was taken to a labor camp in Austria and later removed to Poland. Freed by the French, she joined her husband after the war in Argentina. He died there in 1947. Both originally lie together at Il Borro in Tosany, moved here in 1996.
BONAPARTES EVEN HERE
Included in the “Chapel of the Infants” is Maria Clotilde of Savoy, the “Saint of Moncalieri”. Through her, buried here are a mix of Bonapartes. First and foremost is Plon-Plon – Joseph Charles Paul Napoleon, son of Jerome the King of the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy. An initial supporter of his cousin, Napoleon III, his liberal and anticlerical views left him estranged in the court. Eventually, he was exiled from France along with all other former heads of ruling dynasties in 1886. An infamous lady chaser, his marriage to Maria Clotilde was not a good one. For that, they both are buried here beneath the Basilica.
HOW TO GET TO THE SUPERGA
To get up to the Basilica you can drive, take the rack tramway, opened in 1884 – use tram #15 from Piazza Castello at stop 471 Castello and get off at stop 589 Sassi-Superga (about 22 minutes); buy tickets for the rack tramway (originally built 1884) at the Stazione Sassi (another 15 minutes to the top) – or you can hike. Easiest is maybe Sentiero 29 beginning near the right bank of the Po on Corso Casale – bus 61 from Piazza Vittorio Veneto to stop Croce and backtrack one block west. Atop the Superga there is also a café and beautiful natural forests surround the peak. You can actually stay in the monastery adjoining the Basilica.
Come again! 🙂