Guarini's dome reopened after the fire
Between the cathedral of San Giovanni Battista and the Royal Palace of Turin stands one of the masterpieces of European baroque architecture: the Chapel of the Holy Shroud, built between 1668 and 1694 by the architect and Theatine priest Guarino Guarini to house the Holy Shroud, the linen cloth that according to tradition wrapped the body of Christ after the crucifixion, owned by the Savoy from 1453 and brought to Turin in 1578.
Guarini created an extraordinary space: a circular chapel of black marble, which symbolises mourning, crowned by a dome formed by a sequence of overlapping hexagonal arches that rise towards the top, narrowing, creating an effect of infinite depth and dematerialisation, like a cone of light rising to heaven, ending in a twelve-pointed star with the dove of the Holy Spirit. On the night of 11 April 1997 a terrible fire severely damaged the chapel; the Shroud was saved by the firemen, who broke the bulletproof glass that protected it. After a restoration of over twenty years, the chapel reopened to the public in 2018, and is visited from the Royal Museums. The Shroud itself is kept in a side chapel of the cathedral, in a special case, and is shown to the public only during rare exhibitions.
Tip: the chapel is visited as part of the Musei Reali ticket; in the cathedral, a full-size photographic copy of the Shroud is on display.
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