  SN2011fe was detected by the Palomar Transient Factory on August 24th 2011 in
M101 a few hours after the explosion. From the early optical spectra it was
immediately realized that it was a Type Ia supernova thus making this event the
brightest one discovered in the last twenty years. The distance of the event
offered the rare opportunity to perform a detailed observation with the
instruments on board of INTEGRAL to detect the gamma-ray emission expected from
the decay chains of $^{56}$Ni. The observations were performed in two runs, one
before and around the optical maximum, aimed to detect the early emission from
the decay of $^{56}$Ni and another after this maximum aimed to detect the
emission of $^{56}$Co. The observations performed with the instruments on board
of INTEGRAL (SPI, IBIS/ISGRI, JEMX and OMC) have been analyzed and compared
with the existing models of gamma-ray emission from such kind of supernovae. In
this paper, the analysis of the gamma-ray emission has been restricted to the
first epoch. Both, SPI and IBIS/ISGRI, only provide upper-limits to the
expected emission due to the decay of $^{56}$Ni. These upper-limits on the
gamma-ray flux are of 7.1 $\times$ 10$^{-5}$ ph/s/cm$^2$ for the 158 keV line
and of 2.3 $\times$ 10$^{-4}$ ph/s/cm$^2$ for the 812 keV line. These bounds
allow to reject at the $2\sigma$ level explosions involving a massive white
dwarf, $\sim 1$ M$\odot$ in the sub--Chandrasekhar scenario and specifically
all models that would have substantial amounts of radioactive $^{56}$Ni in the
outer layers of the exploding star responsible of the SN2011fe event. The
optical light curve obtained with the OMC camera also suggests that SN2011fe
was the outcome of the explosion, possibly a delayed detonation although other
models are possible, of a CO white dwarf that synthesized $\sim 0.55$ M$_\odot$
of $^{56}$Ni. For this specific model.
