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The estate under Vittorio Emanuele II

It was on August 26, 1836, at the age of sixteen years, that Vittorio Emanuele II of Savoy, son of Carlo Alberto and Maria Teresa of Tuscany, born in Palazzo Carignano on March 14, 1820, participated in one of his first official hunts with his father, probably in the estate at Racconigi.

The latter would become a passion and a custom that he would continue to indulge in throughout his lifetime, so much so as to earn him the nickname “the Hunter King” after his appointment as sovereign in 1849. He is depicted as such by Comba in one of the works of art currently housed in the Royal Apartments at Borgo Castello within La Mandria.

The Park owes a lot to him, from its very beginnings, when he chose it as one of his favourite places to spend his holidays in 1859.

In 1861 in fact, the King purchased the state-owned forest of Venaria Reale from the State Finance Department (which would then officially become the estate of Regia Mandria from 1863), only to later increase his acquisition to include the surrounding private property - followed by the enclosure of the entire estate with a wall measuring 30 km in length.

Here he was able to live with Rosa Vercellana, “la Bela Rosin”, countess of Mirafiori and Fontanafredda, who later became a morganatic bride in 1869 while he perfected his role of hunter, taking on a more modern look, less bound to the duties of the court.

It was here that Vittorio Emanuele II indulged in his passion for animals, both through the acclimatization of certain native species and through the naturalisation of numerous others, of which he was an expert collector and authority.

He was even awarded a prize by the Société d'Acclimatation de Paris for this acclimatization activity. Shortly afterwards, it was thanks to him that numerous wapiti deer were sent to the estate in various dispatches, bringing with them a hepatic parasite, the Fasciloides magna, which was described for the first time at La Mandria by the court’s vet, Bassi. The wapiti, which were interbred with the deer already on the estate, are the progenitors of the animals that are still present in the Regional Park today.

The acclimatisation garden of Regia Mandria remained active within the complex for approximately 20 years, becoming internationally renowned. From this point of view experiments were also carried out on silkworm, some examples of which still remain in the Zoology Museum. A zoological laboratory was also operational at the Park. It was managed, like the acclimatisation garden, by Francesco Comba and his father, Benvenuto. In the zoological laboratory, the headquarters of which were located in what is now Cascina Comba, the majority of the naturalisation activities of the animals from the hunts or from the Royal Zoological Gardens were carried out. In March 1880 when Comba abandoned the management of the Royal Zoological collections at Regia Mandria, this activity also ceased.

In 1887, as part of the reorganisation of the patrimony implemented by Umberto I of Savoy after the death of his father, the estate was sold to the Medici del Vascello and remained theirs until the definitive transfer.