Turin (Italian Torino), city, northwestern Italy, capital of Turin Province and of Piedmont Region, at the confluence of the Po and Dora Riparia rivers. The city is a major cultural and industrial center, with manufactures of motor vehicles (FIAT), leather and rubber goods, clothing, and plastic products. Except for the Cathedral of San Giovanni Battista (late 15th century), most of the important public buildings in Turin date from the 17th and 18th centuries; many are by the baroque architects Guarino Guarini and Filippo Juvarra. In the cathedral's Chapel of the Holy Shroud is an urn containing a shroud in which, according to tradition, Christ was wrapped for burial. Other points of interest include the Armeria Reale (in the former royal palace), a museum with an outstanding collection of weapons and armor; the Palazzo Madama, a palace now housing a museum of ancient art; the Palazzo Carignano, birthplace of Victor Emmanuel II of Italy; the domed Mole Antonelliana, built in 1863 as a synagogue; and the Academy of Science. The Superga Basilica (completed 1731), a pantheon mausoleum of the house of Savoy, is on a hill overlooking the city. The University of Turin, the city's intellectual center, was founded in 1404. Turin, originally the chief town of the Ligurian tribe of the Taurini, became a Roman colony in about the 1st century AD. It was the seat of a Lombard duchy in the 7th century; in the late 13th century it came under the control of the house of Savoy. The French occupied Turin from 1536 to 1562, after which it became the seat of the dukes of Savoy. Withstanding sieges by the French in 1640 and 1706, the city was the capital of the kingdom of Sardinia from 1720 to 1861 (except for 1800-14, when it was held by France). Turin was prominent in the Risorgimento, the 19th-century movement for the unification of Italy, and served during 1861-65 as the first national capital.
Population (1999 estimate) # 962,507. OM (2000)# 876