Introduction
The La Mandria Regional Park is an extensive area created at the beginning of the 16th century as a hunting reserve for the Court of Savoy and a holiday and recreation site offering various facilities for the King and his court. For reasons to do with hunting and thanks to the interest of Carlo Emanuele II and the work of Castellamonte, a sumptuous leisure palace was erected during the middle of the 17th century; it would later become the Venaria castle complex.
Under the rule of Vittorio Amedeo II, a horse-breeding farm was established for the royal stud (hence the name “La Mandria”). Then, under the rule of Vittorio Emanuele II, who made the estate into his private hunting grounds, many other buildings were erected and extended (Borgo Castello, the ‘Bizzarria’, the ‘cascine’ or farmhouses); these are all now extremely interesting sites from a historical and architectural point of view.
Around the end of the 1800’s, the property was transferred to the Marquis Medici del Vascello. Between 1920 and 1930, extensive restoration work was carried out, giving the estate its current appearance. In 1946, the Marquis was forced to begin parcelling out the estate. In 1955, two schools were up and running at La Mandria, from nursery school to primary school. There were two chapels and two company social clubs, with television, cinema and theatre. From 1954 to 1957 there was even a magazine called “Corriere Mandriano”. In 1958, a large strip of land was transferred to FIAT, which transformed it into a test circuit for cars. In 1960, 243 hectares of the estate were made into a golf course. Following this, a further 430 hectares were purchased as a hunting reserve by the Bonomi Bolchini family, who also purchased the Castello dei Laghi. A plot of 400 hectares was later sold to build the residential complex “I Roveri” and another golf course. A last portion, measuring approximately eleven and a half hectares went to the Zooprophylactic Institute of Piedmont.
In 1976, the Piedmont Regional Administration purchased the remaining 1345 hectares, to which a further 500 hectares from the ‘Tenuta dei Laghi’ property were added in 1995.
On August 21, 1978, a regional law established the La Mandria Regional Park with the aim of safeguarding, upgrading and valorising the environmental and historical sites of the Venaria Reale castle and the “square” annexes, from the Castello de la Mandria to the former royal hunting estate as well as the individual immovable and movable properties that made it up, given that they were of historical, cultural and environmental importance. Various aims were involved: promote and manage all the initiatives necessary or useful in order to facilitate the public use and enjoyment of the territory and its movable and immovable property (of historical, cultural and environmental importance for recreational, educational and scientific purposes); protect and upgrade the natural environment and its biological, zoological, botanical and geological aspects; ensure the most effective protection and valorisation of the forest areas and, finally, promote all necessary or useful activities aimed at improving the existing agricultural activities.
