Piedmont historical timeline

Origins

Celtic and Ligurian peoples held the area when Rome arrived; Augusta Taurinorum, founded around 28 BC on the site of Turin, still dictates the city's street grid. Lombard and Frankish rule followed the empire's collapse, and the region fragmented into marches and bishoprics.

The Savoy centuries

The decisive fact of Piedmontese history is the House of Savoy, which emerged in the 11th century holding lands on both sides of the western Alps. In 1563 Emmanuel Philibert moved the capital from Chambéry to Turin — a shift from a French-speaking duchy to an Italian-facing state, and the reason Turin was rebuilt on a monumental plan over the following two centuries by Guarino Guarini, Filippo Juvarra and their successors.

In 1720 the dynasty acquired Sardinia and with it a royal title, ruling a Kingdom of Sardinia governed from Turin. Its army and administration were the most capable in Italy, which is what made what followed possible.

Unification

The Risorgimento was run from here. Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour, prime minister from 1852, engineered the diplomatic and military conditions for unification — an alliance with France, the wars of 1859, and the annexation of one Italian state after another. Victor Emmanuel II was proclaimed king of Italy in 1861, with Turin as the first capital. It held the role for four years before the capital moved to Florence, and then in 1871 to Rome. Cavour died months after unification, aged 50.

Industry

Losing the capital pushed Turin toward manufacturing. FIAT was founded in 1899, and by the mid-20th century the city was Italy's industrial engine, drawing hundreds of thousands of migrants from the south — a movement that reshaped both the city and the country's politics. Olivetti built Ivrea into a designed industrial town, now UNESCO-listed. Lavazza, Martini and Ferrero are all Piedmontese, the last of which invented gianduja's industrial descendant at Alba in the 1940s.

What is visible now

The Roman grid under Turin's centre, the Baroque plan laid over it, the Savoy palaces ringing the city, the Lingotto factory with its rooftop test track now converted to public use, and the Langhe's vineyards — which were poor country within living memory and are now among the most valuable agricultural land in Italy.