The official national museum of Italian unification, housed in Palazzo Carignano — the very building where the first parliament of unified Italy sat in 1861. The setting is one of the great Baroque palaces of Turin, Guarino Guarini at his most exuberant, with a curving brick facade and an interior of double-height halls.
The collection runs from the late eighteenth century to the First World War: maps and uniforms, the original parliamentary chamber preserved as it was, Garibaldi's red shirts, period oil paintings of the major battles, and a fine section on the European revolutions of 1848. Particularly good for understanding why Turin was for a few years the capital of a brand-new country.