Museo dell'Automobile di Torino; Where Italy's automotive treasures reside.(Escape Roads)

Byline: LARRY EDSALL

Turin, or Torino to those who live there, was crushed by Hannibal as he descended from the Alps. But the town rebounded nicely. In 1578 it became home to the Shroud. Later it served as the first capital of the unified nation of Italy. In 2006, it will host the Olympic Winter Games.

The city, with wide piazzas connected by wondrously arcaded sidewalks, became the hub of Italy's automotive and filmmaking industries. Today each industry is the subject of a marvelous museum there. The Mole Antonelliana is Turin's landmark, and is home to the National Museum of Cinema.

South of the city center, on the banks of the Po River and just a short walk from the famous Lingotto, the former Fiat factory turned conference center, is a stunning, curved structure of concrete and glass designed by architect Amedeo Albertini. The three-floor Italian national auto museum, aka the Biscaretti Automobile Museum, opened in 1960. It comprises two main buildings connected by ``sleeves.'' The riverfront building is particularly impressive, with its huge windows and a second floor that almost appears to float atop inverted pyramid supports.

Although this is Italy's national car museum, its collection spans the automotive globe. Among its most famous vehicles is the 1907 Itala that carried Prince Scipione Borghese, mechanic Ettore Guizzardi and writer Luigi Barzini to victory in the Peking-to-Paris race, which they won by the narrow margin of 20 days.

Right beside that Italian national treasure are an 8-horsepower 1903 De Dion-Bouton, one of that French maker's first rear-engined cars, and a 1904 Curved Dash Oldsmobile from the United States.

Of course, the emphasis is on Italian cars, and on red ...