The Royal Park of Racconigi 

 The documented origins of the castle of Racconigi date to the end of the 12th century, when the village and the manor belonged to the Marquises of Saluzzo. Conquered by the Savoys in 1363, the property was then left to the Acaja princes. When this line died out (1418) the territory became part of the feud set up by Ludovico d’Acaja for the benefit of his illegitimate son, also named Ludovico and the progenitor of the Savoy-Racconigi line. In 1605 this line came to an end and in 1629 Carlo Emanuele I, the Duke of Savoy, made Racconigi part of the assets of the annuity for his fifth son Tommaso, forebear of the Savoy-Carignano branch.
In 1670, the second prince of Carignano, Emanuele Filiberto Amedeo (called “the mute” because of the impairment that afflicted him since birth) commissions André Le Nôtre, admired during the numerous sojourns to France, to design the plan for adapting the garden and the park (formerly mentioned in 14th-century documents).
In 1676, the same prince commissions Guarino Guarini to make the plans for converting the old medieval castle into a “palatio di delitie” (palace of delights). Although only the northern side facing the park is actually built, it is nevertheless one of the masterpieces by the architect from Modena.
The Royal Castle of Racconigi is surrounded by a 170 hectare park. Described as “most beautiful and agreeable” in documents from as long ago as the 1400s and then again from the early 17th century, the garden met with its first great transformation around 1670 on a design by André Le Nôtre.
In the last two decades of the 1700s it was enlarged and altered according to the canons of the English garden, on a project by Giacomo Pregliasco. Then in 1820, the German gardener Xavier Kurten was appointed by Carlo Alberto to give the garden the “romantic” appearance it has kept to this day.
Starting in 1834, on the northwestern edge of the Park, Pelagio Palagi created the imposing  “gothic castle farm premises”, the splendid Margaria including the Queen’s Reposoir , the Chapel, and the greenhouses, built according to drawings by Carlo Sada. And behind the Greenhouses, surrounded by an iron fence, extends the “garden of the young princes”.
About 25 kilometres of paths wind their way through the Park to reach the various buildings scattered about the complex: the Russian Dacha, the Gothic House, the Lake of San Giuseppe, the Trocadero monument, the Horse Stables, the “Eagle Owl house”, the dovecote–belvedere. And twelve kilometres of canals flow to and from the landing stage at Temple Island, the site of Merlin’s grotto, and empty into the large 180,000 m2 lake.