Palazzo Carignano, Villa della Regina, Castles of Moncalieri and Racconigi: here are the four new directors

Fournew directors for four cultural sites of the Piedmont Regional Museums Directorate: Palazzo Carignano, Villa della Regina, Moncalieri Castle and Racconigi Castle.

At the helm of Palazzo Carignano is now Angela Maria Rita Farruggia, an official architect coming from the Soprintendenza Archeologia Belle Arti e Paesaggio for the Metropolitan City of Turin, within which she was in charge of monumental and landscape protection, interventions on cultural heritage and promotion and enhancement activities for the historic site of Palazzo Chiablese. Serving in the Ministry since 2010, she holds doctoral degrees in History and Criticism of Architectural and Environmental Heritage and a postgraduate degree from the Polytechnic University of Turin, where she was a research fellow and did contract teaching.

Outgoing director Chiara Teolato moves on to Villa della Regina, for which she was responsible for the collections for the past few years. A graduate and specialist in art history from the University of Rome “La Sapienza,” she holds a PhD in History and Conservation of the Object of Art and Architecture from the University of Roma Tre and a master’s degree in public administration management from SDA Bocconi in Milan. At Roma Tre she was also a research fellow, focusing her studies on the history of Italian and European collecting. An art historian official in the Ministry since 2013, she was in charge of activities for UNESCO sites and director, for a brief period, of the Agliè Castle. During her tenure as director of Palazzo Carignano, she implemented programs for the promotion of the museum itinerary, with particular attention to physical, sensory and cognitive accessibility, and conducted research on the architectural and art-historical transformations that affected the residence.

Riccardo Vitale, on the other hand, leaves after six years the direction of Racconigi Castle for the direction of Moncalieri Castle and also, in parallel, maintains that of Gavi Fort. With a degree in architecture from the Polytechnic University of Turin, he has been an architect officer of the Ministry since 2008, in whose sphere he has been operational first on the protection of architectural and landscape heritage and then on heritage management. As director of the Castle of Racconigi, he has been committed to the enhancement of the palace, and has carried out projects to raise awareness of the collections and expand museum itineraries, such as the recovery of the Garden of Leaves, the restoration and setting up of the Palagian Frieze, and the construction site for the restoration of the evocative spaces of the Baths of Charles Albert, recently opened to the public.

Finally, Racconigi Castle will be led by Alessandra Giovannini Luca, who has also studied Piedmontese figurative culture with reference to the Castles of Agliè and Racconigi, for which she was appointed collections manager in 2018. A Ph.D. in Museology, Art Criticism and Restoration and adjunct professor at the University of Turin, she has devoted her research work to the interactions between art historiography, the history of preservation and restoration, while, more recently, she has been investigating the history of photography, as well as dynastic patronage and collecting in relation to the circuit of Savoy residences. At Racconigi, she has worked on improving accessibility to the heritage with particular reference to Savoy iconography, the Armory’s collections and the residence’s 20th-century season.

In addition to the Fort of Gavi, for the other places of culture of the Piedmont Regional Museums Directorate, the assignments already underway continue: that of Alessandra Gallo Orsi for the Castle of Agliè and that of Valentina Barberis for the Castle of Serralunga d’Alba and the Abbeys of Vezzolano and Fruttuaria.

Palazzo Carignano, Villa della Regina, Castles of Moncalieri and Racconigi: here are the four new directors

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