HISTORY AND BUILDING STAGES
G.F.
Baroncello the project of A. di Castellamonte, design in perspective
of the Villa and the Palace of Venaria Reale with its contents
The "Royal Venaria" of Amedeo di Castellamonte.
In 1659 the grandiose project of the Duke Carlo Emanuele II came
true by
building a fixed abode for hunting (lett. Venatorial) in order
to celebrate through the rituals of hunting the magnificence of
the Duke. So he built this Palace as a design of the "delitie"
of the 17th century and as a crown of Turin the capital.
The work of Castellamonte, which began in 1659 and was ended in
1675, was an "unicum" and consisted of a Village, Royal
Palace and Gardens and extended for an axis of about 2 Km. The Village
had in the center a quadrioval square which reproduced the "Collar
of the order of Annunziata". The Royal Palace included two
courts and had in the center the "Diana Room". Towards
south we can find the stables, kennels, and at west the orangerie, the "upper
park of the deers" and, in front of the Village the Chapel
of S.Rocco.
The new project for the Royal Palace of Michelangelo Garove.
The distruction of the palace in some parts caused by the French
troops of Catinat in 1693 was the reason to begin a new project
of restoration (1699-1713). Michelangelo Garove expressed in his
project the new reference of the Court of Vittorio Amedeo II:
Versailles. But only the south sleeve of the Garove's project
was realized while the north sleeve, simmetric, wasn't built because of the
untimely death of Garove in 1713.
The "big dimension" of Filippo Juvarra. In 1716
the building site was assigned to Filippo Juvarra. He worked on
some principal elements of the building: the arrangement of the
hunting services at south east, the building of the Royal Chapel,
and the formal recomposing of a single court in front of the Village.
In order to define this huge space, Juvarra raised the gallery
by opening towards the outside with scansion of large windows.
Juvarra's works continued between 1717 and 1722, with the accomplishment
of the Chapel dedicated to S.Uberto, a building of smoothed greek
cross and diagonally circular chapels (a similar building to Superga
but richer and more well-constructed than it). The building called
"Big Stable" o "Orangerie", but really including
both functions was built by Filippo Juvarra between 1721 and 1727
and it is situated at the extreme south east of the complex.
The stables and the completing work of Benedetto Alfieri.
Benedetto Alfieri was charged, after the death of Juvarra, to
continue the work at the Royal Palace. In 1751 the construction
of the "L" building, the church and the Garove's pavillon
towards the Village, the new "Belvedere", and the large
stairs to the church tribuns was started.Between 1754 and 1755
the little Alfieri's gallery was built which connected the church
to the Orangerie. In 1757 the buildings behind S.Uberto were built
and they had the function of a coach house.
THE RECOVERY OF THE DIANA TEMPLE
They have been recently bring to the light the
foundations of the Diana Temple, a splendid architecture
castellamontiana, that rose once at the end of the park of the
Palace and that the commemorative sources of the epoch defined as "to
enumerate it among the wonder of the art". In this thick
tempietto the courtiers were brought, to find rest and quiet or to
consume furtive loves.
The foundations have returned to the light during the excavations in
progress, finalized to the ritracciamento of the runs of the gardens
that you/they once adorned the Palace. This discovery is very
interesting for obvious historical-archaeological motives, but you/he/she
has also aroused great curiosity, and they have been so many the
curious ones that go to see the rests, above all during the Day of
the Parks, unwound in June of the 2001.
The ancient Temple of Daylight was dismantled in the 1700 second the
will of Vittorio Amedeo II in sight of a restoration of the gardens
that foresaw articulated runs of water and perspectives to the
endless one (like french one). The precious marbles that dressed again the temple came
used for other topics (eight columns were used for the Chapel of S.
Uberto and others eight for the Church of S. Maria, while the
marbles had different use inside the Palace.
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