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The Royal Palace: The former residence of the kings of Sardina and of Italy continue… May 12, 2008

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Beaumont was also the author of the painted figures floating above the mirror walls of Queen Maria Theresa’s room, their graceful limbs mingling in the cloudy recesses of the glass with the discordant images of modern sightseers. But the eye is soon distracted from these by the glittering inlay work of ivory, precious metals and rare woods which covers every piece of furniture and, like a film of hoar frost, emphasises the curves of broken pediments and slender cabriole legs. The effect is magical and is largely the work of Pietro Piffetti, another artist appointed by Juvara. An infinitely skilled craftsman, he was obsessed with the idea of inlaying wood with costly materials, and when he gave free reign to this idiosyncrasy, his art could result in a display of mere virtuosity. The king’s minute private chapel provides an example of this. It is characteristic of Piffetti that the tiny chamber should take the form of an oratory masquerading as a miniature library. The altar resembles a writing table and is flanked by tiers of curving shelves. All the woodwork, including the floor, is profusely decorated with inlay work of ivory, mother- of-pearl and various coloured woods. Scrolls, arabesques, swags and cloud shapes mingle with naturalistic clusters of morning glory, roses and peonies and with angels, saints and putti bearing emblems of the Passion. It is only the microscopic scale and delicate proportions of the work that redeem this excessive ornament from the charge of vulgarity.

Travel GuidebookWhen Juvara died in 1736 he was succeeded by Count Benedetto Alfieri, the most notable of a series of Piedmontese aristocratic architects. His masterpiece at the Royal Palace is the Mirror Room, where the combination of gilt and reflections is even more bewitching than in Maria Theresa’s chamber. It is a small apartment, with walls and ceiling of looking-glass panels framed in gilded scrolls, while the inlaid floor is polished to such a pitch that it too serves as a mirror. It is as though a crystal drop from one of the royal chandeliers had been magnified into a liquid, dazzling room. Swimming across the luminous surfaces are a number of miniatures of members of the Royal House augmented by eleven larger heads of boys, girls and old men painted on the glass by the Venetian Guiseppe Nogari, who also painted the brilliant picture in the centre of the ceiling glass of Divine Wisdom distributing Sceptres and Crowns.

Although they do not sparkle with the elegance of the rooms just described, for sheer magnificence and the sumptuous display of royal purple and gold the nineteenth-century decorations at Turin have no equal. The artist in charge of the work under Carlo Alberto was Pelagio Palagi, a Bolognese painter who had studied in Rome. He was working at the palace almost without interruption from 1834 until 1853. Among the first of the apartments to be reconstituted according to Palagi’s designs was the Throne Room. He retained the seventeenth-century ceiling, accommodating his own decoration very successfully to the robust pattern of gilded coffers, bold masks and rosettes swirling about an oval allegory by Giovanni Miel set in a rich rectangular frame. Palagi echoed and intensified its warm colouring in his treatment of the rest of the room. It is small by comparison with the great throne rooms of some other palaces, but it makes an impression of overwhelming splendour. The lion throne is set on a red velvet-covered dais enclosed by a gilt bronze railing, the coils of which are composed of curling fern fronds, garlands, full quivers, flaming torches, doves, putti and urns. And above the throne purple curtains fringed with gold and silver lustre billow from a gilded circular canopy.

From the Throne Room a whole suite of apartments opens out, all decorated by Palagi and varying in colour from scarlet and gold to grass green and gold. Among the rich furnishings there are some stools designed by Palagi which merit particular attention. They are fashioned of gilt bronze and the supports take the form of winged youths flying out from under the seat to hold hands or clasp a wreath. The green and gold Council Chamber boasts four superb standing gilded candelabra, each branching out into figures and foliage above four crowned classical maidenly forms resting on a dolphin base. Female caryatids flank the white marble mantelpiece and their counterparts in gilded bronze frame the mirror above it. They were carved by two forgotten artists, F. Somani and Giuseppe Gagani. The seventeenth-century ceiling of this noble room shows female heads, large and powerfully modelled, half turned away from the spectator, the full throats ending in massy foliage.

But the climax of Palagi’s transformations at Turin is the amazing Alcove Room, once the bedroom of Carlo Emmanuele II, now a spirited, fairground riot of gleaming gilt. The ordering of the apartment, divided in two by an elaborate screen, is basically seventeenth-century with a splendid ceiling decorated with trophies of arms and winged figures; but to the nineteenth century belong the gilded half-length female forms swelling from tapering columns to support the entablature of the screen.

Palagi seems to have been most inspired when confronted with existing decorations. The great pilastered Ballroom, only completed in Carlo Alberto’s reign, is all Palagi’s invention, and although it abounds in charming detail, the apartment makes an impression of coldness and formality. By the time it was finished the palace seemed to be complete in every detail. But in 1864 Vittorio Emmanuele II commissioned Augusto Ferri to build the marble staircase which now leads stiffly and pompously from the state rooms down to the inner courtyard. It is a startlingly white and raw sienna composition adorned with life- size statues of the princes of Savoy and large Edwardian-looking urns. A colossal equestrian figure charging from a shell niche urges the visitor from the foot of the stairs to the courtyard entrance, and he is finally shown through the door by a crisply carved Prince Eugene.

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The Royal Palace: The former residence of the kings of Sardina and of Italy continue…

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