Turin is one of the most important university, cultural, touristic and scientific centres of Italy. The oldest settlings in this land are of the Roman age; in the Middle age was the city sought by many feudal families until the year 940, when it went under the owning of the Savoia family. During the centuries the French and the Spanish alternated with the Savoia, until the year 1814, as Turin definitively went under the Savoia. Symbolic centre of the Risorgimento, it became capital city of the Kingdom of Italy from 1861 to 1865. At the beginning of the XX century it saw the origins of the Futuristic movement and after the 1st World War it became with the FIAT factories the first Italian industrial town. In 2006 was Turin site of the Olympic Winter Games.
Among the most important monuments are worth a visit the XIX century Mole Antonelliana, which houses the National Museum of Cinema, Palazzo Reale, the Renaissance cathedral of San Giovanni Battista, the Egyptian Museum, the Galleria Sabauda, Palazzo Carignano (seat of the first Parliament of Italy and now house of the National Museum of Risorgimento). Palazzo Madama is Unesco World Heritage: built as town gate by the Romans, in XIV century it went to a palace under the Reign of the Savoia and in XIII century was it transformed through Baroque shapes by the Savoia architect Filippo Juvara.
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