Villa Rey, Historic villa in Val San Martino district, Turin, Italy.
Villa Rey, also called il Priè, is a 17th-century villa on Turin's hill in the Madonna del Pilone area, in Val San Martino. Its exterior walls are largely original 17th-century work, with 17th- and 18th-century brick facades, a late-18th-century atrium, and a ground-floor salon with mythological frescoes and stuccoes. The park covers 29,000 square metres.
The Turinetti di Priero family began building the villa in Val San Martino in the late 1600s, but the work was interrupted by the Spanish War of Succession; in the early 1700s French troops occupied the unfinished building as an outpost and later looted it. In 1780 Marquis Carron di San Tommaso commissioned architect Mario Ludovico Quarini to enlarge and restore it, but the work stopped at the client's death. The Massimino di Ceva family reduced the park to its present 29,000 sq m, and in 1872 Cavalier Giacomo Rey turned the villa into a summer residence. The City of Turin acquired it in 1933, and since 2006 it has housed the Automotoclub Storico Italiano.
The property represents a place where the city meets the surrounding landscape, hosting different activities side by side. Visitors notice how a historical building coexists with modern leisure uses in the same space.
The location is accessible by public transportation, including bus 61 to Gobetti stop and tram 3 to Hermada stop. The hilltop position means visitors should expect some uphill walking upon arrival.
In 2019 a roughly 500-square-metre underground bunker, about 20 metres deep, was found beneath the villa, probably built and used by German troops during the Second World War. No trace of it appears in official documents. A plaque in the park recalls that Emilio Salgari took his own life there on 25 April 1911.
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