The Cerruti Collection
A Hidden Treasure on the Outskirts of Turin
The Cerruti Collection is one of Italy’s most refined private art collections. It comprises nearly three hundred works, including paintings and sculptures, ranging from the Middle Ages to contemporary art, as well as antique books, precious bookbindings, and more than three hundred pieces of period furniture and furnishings, including rugs and writing desks crafted by renowned cabinetmakers.
A journey through art that spans masters such as Daddi, Pontormo, and Ribera, moving on to Renoir, Modigliani, Kandinsky, and Klee, and extending to Italian Futurists like Boccioni and Balla, Surrealists such as Magritte, and artists of the Novecento movement and the contemporary era, including Bacon, Burri, Warhol, De Dominicis, and Paolini.
This is the extraordinary legacy of Francesco Federico Cerruti (Genoa, 1922 – Turin, 2015), a shy and reserved entrepreneur who, beginning in the 1960s, dedicated his life to building this exceptional and eccentric art collection.
A villa dedicated to art
In 1961, Cerruti purchased a plot of land in Rivoli, just behind the Manica Lunga wing of the castle – which was still in ruins at the time – and built a Provençal-style villa there, completed in the late 1960s and partially renovated in the 1980s. Never lived in, the villa became the perfect setting to house the collection, which was carefully arranged room by room.
Between 2016 and 2019, the villa underwent a complete refurbishment, meeting the highest international museum standards in terms of security, fire safety and climate control. The current exhibition layout integrates works of art and furnishings into the original rooms, in keeping with Cerruti’s vision for the exhibition, in which art and living merge into a single immersive experience.
A gift to the community
In 2001, the Francesco Federico Cerruti Foundation for Art (ETS) was established, founded by Cerruti himself with the aim of returning this heritage to the community, both nationally and internationally. From the very beginning, the collector envisaged this collection as a shared asset, not merely as a private collection. In June 2017, an agreement was signed between the Cerruti Foundation and the Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art to collaborate on the promotion, preservation, management and public access to the Cerruti Collection, including the publication of a catalogue and the appointment of an Artistic Director.
The Cerruti Collection can only be visited as part of a guided tour, with tours starting at 11.00, 11.45, 12.00, 12.45, 14.00, 14.45, 15.00, 15.45, 16.00 and 16.45.
The tour is conducted in Italian. Tours in English, French, Spanish and German are available by booking only.
Each tour group can accommodate a maximum of 15 people. Children aged 10 and over are admitted only when accompanied by an adult.
On the first Saturday of the month, self-guided tours are available.
The Cerruti Collection has a bookshop and private on-site car park, with charging points for electric cars and bikes.
Tickets for the Cerruti Collection can be purchased online at: www.castellodirivoli.org/biglietti, and at the Cerruti Collection ticket office.