On the occasion of the fifth edition of the Nitto ATP Finals, the Royal Museums in collaboration with the State Archives of Turin present an exhibition dossier titled "At the origins of tennis: rackets and court games," which analyzes from a historical, artistic, and cultural perspective one of the most appreciated and practiced sports globally.

The small but precious exhibition, set up from Saturday 8 to Tuesday 18 November 2025 on the second floor of the Galleria Sabauda, presents three works related to the history and culture of the court, documenting how the game of tennis - or its ancestor, the "jeu de paume" or "pallacorda" - belonged to court life and was enthusiastically practiced by the Dukes of Savoy.

"Game of kings and king of games," tennis enjoyed great success in France and in the main courts of the Italian Renaissance (Florence, Milan, Ferrara, Mantua), so much so that as early as 1555 the philosopher Antonio Scaino wrote the first Treatise on the game of the ball with precise references to the "game of the racket."

For this reason, tennis was part of the education and leisure activities of the young princes of Savoy, as evidenced by the drawing in the precious paper manuscript on loan from the State Archives containing portraits of the counts and dukes of Savoy with their respective consorts, interspersed with the most relevant events in Savoy history and accompanied by the poetic comments of the historian Filiberto Pingone (1525 - 1582). On one of the displayed pages, the young Prince Carlo Giovanni Amedeo (1488 -1496), at the age of six, holds a bird tied with a lace, while next to him a racket and a ball are depicted, a clear reference to the children's pastimes and the education of the prince. On the next page, from a chest with wheels, almost a modern toy chest, emerge a slingshot, a toy horse, a spinning top, a horn, a tambourine, and a whirligig, ready to accompany the fun of the young courtiers.

The same theme is referenced in the double portrait at the Galleria Sabauda where the two eldest sons of Vittorio Amedeo I and Cristina of France are depicted with their favorite toys: the young Carlo Emanuele, future duke, at two years old, holds a small bird tied with a thin cord between his fingers while the older one, Francesco Giacinto at four years old, looks at the viewer holding a ball and a racket.

Opposite this canvas is displayed a refined allegorical painting from the Galleria Sabauda, executed by the Flemish painter Jan Brueghel the Younger: through the chaotic accumulation of objects in the foreground referring to music, games, art, science, war, and sensory pleasures, the painter showcases a true inventory of human passions and temptations: at the center of the composition are two rackets and three balls which, together with the other elements, symbolically evoke the vanity of earthly riches.

To delve deeper into the cultural and historical themes proposed by the exhibition, on Monday, November 10, 2025, from 3 pm to 4 pm at Casa Tennis, in Piazza Castello in Turin, there will be the event At the origins of tennis: rackets and court games. During the event, part of the program Live tennis, Love Turin & Piedmont, Paola D'Agostino, Director of the Royal Museums, Annamaria Bava, Head of the Art and Archaeology Collections of the Royal Museums, Stefano Benedetto, Director of the State Archives of Turin, and Alessandro Tosi, Director of the Museum of Graphics and professor of Modern Art History at the University of Pisa, will guide the audience on a journey through time to discover the tennis of yesterday and today, focusing on the origins of this sport, born as an elegant pastime in European courts.

Live tennis, Love Turin & Piedmont also offers, at Casa Tennis, on Friday, November 14, 2025, at 5:30 pm, the event The "divine" Guido Reni in the Savoy collections and on the altars of Piedmont, to discover the modernity of the "divine" Guido Reni, a master of seventeenth-century painting loved by the Savoy court and protagonist of the ongoing exhibition at the Royal Museums (Galleria Sabauda, second floor), visitable until January 18, 2026. The curators Annamaria Bava and Sofia Villano will narrate the life and art of the Emilian painter on the occasion of the 450th anniversary of his birth, through over twenty works exhibited including paintings, drawings, and engravings. Among the masterpieces, the altarpiece of theAssumption of the Virgin, rediscovered at Abbadia Alpina in Pinerolo and restored for the occasion, alongside canvases from Piedmontese collections and from the Musée des Augustins in Toulouse. A journey between devotion and beauty, classicism and light, to rediscover the perfect harmony of the "divine Guido" as he was already called by his contemporaries.