Stupinigi Castle

The castle of Stupinigi ( ital. Palazzina di caccia di Stupinigi , dt. Hunting castle of Stupinigi ), about ten kilometers southwest of Turin in Italy in the municipality of Nichelino , was a hunting seat of the dukes of Savoy . The construction, which began in 1729, is a major work by the baroque architect Filippo Juvarra and is on the UNESCO World Heritage List .

Stupinigi, Corps de Logis of the hunting lodge

History of the castle

Stupinigi, floor plan. The access avenue towards Turin leads out of the picture above.

Duke Viktor Amadeus II wanted a contemporary hunting lodge near the royal seat of Turin and commissioned his court architect Filippo Juvarra to build a castle . Juvarra had so far described a brilliant career in the service of the Savoy and in 1729 presented the plans for his last major work in Italy.

The building of Juvarra and the core of the future baroque palace consisted of a large, polygonal and domed ballroom, which was framed with four wings in the shape of a St. Andrew's cross . These four wings accommodated further ballrooms and the private rooms of the ruling couple; construction was largely completed by 1734. Juvarra had carefully planned even the smallest details of the palace until he left for Spain in 1735 and left the completed construction behind. Just a few years later, the new Duke Karl Emanuel III appeared. this "Palazzina" called castle too small and he commissioned the architect family Bernard with the extension of the building by adding a number of side wings, whereby the castle expanded into the castle.

The great hall in the main building of the castle

Architecture and equipment

A wide avenue, which finds its city-side vanishing point in the royal palace , runs dead straight towards the hunting lodge. In the middle of a sequence of wing structures, the visitor approaches the large, hexagonal courtyard in front of the main building. Its dome is crowned by a copper deer, indicating the purpose of the building from afar. Its center is the salone , a round, architecturally clearly delimited, but richly decorated ballroom, which is spanned by a dome resting on four pillars. Equipped with eye-deceptive architectural painting and rich decoration, a contemporary saw in him "a capricchio or the dream of an architect that would be unthinkable in a palace, but which one believed to be able to venture into a country house". Other rooms of the castle have also been preserved in their original, stylish state of the furnishings, which were completed by around 1760. It is determined by light colors and a cheerful mood. Precious materials such as mirrors, Chinese wallpaper and silk fabrics, elaborate carvings and illusionistic sky painting served the need for new stimuli in a society that competed with other European royal courts through this luxury. The central motif of the interior is hunting , which is referred to in numerous paintings.

It is noteworthy that the entire floor plan offers hardly any right angles and the castle thus resembles a gigantic ornament down to the last detail , together with the cheerful decorations of the facades, the building already suggests the approaching Rococo and the departure from the strict baroque forms. "It can be called the most ingenious of all palaces of the 18th century. It offers a new, valid interpretation of the baroque concepts of centralization and expansion and, despite its size, expresses the intimate and soulful attitude of the era".

The castle is open to visitors today. It also includes a museum of 18th century furniture art.

View into the main courtyard of the palace

The park and the surrounding area

The castle of Stupinigi is the center of a large castle park , which in turn represents the center of the former hunting area. The inner courtyards in front of the palace, which merge into one another, are decorated with magnificent boxwood parterres and flower beds, the surroundings are structured by the large visual axis and shaped by a wide landscaped park. As Parco nazionale di Stupinigi it is under special protection.

Location

Stupinigi served as the backdrop for the king's residence in the Italian telenovela Elisa di Rivombrosa .

literature

• Ulrich Coenen: Bühlerhöhe and Stupinigi. Filippo Juvarra's hunting lodge as a model for the neo-baroque monument by Wilhelm Kreis . In: The Ortenau. Publications of the Historical Association for Mittelbaden, 82 (2002), pp. 243–276.
• Rolf Tomann (Ed.): The art of the baroque - architecture, sculpture, painting Könemann, 1997
• Carlo Balma Mion: Lodovico Bò (1721-1800). Misuratore, soprastante, architetto UNI Service, 2007
• Andreina Griseri: The Stupinigi Hunting Lodge near Turin , Herrsching: Manfred Pawlak, 1989

Web links

Commons : Stupinigi  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

• Palazzina di Caccia di Stupinigi (Italian)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Jérôme Lalande : Voyage d'un françois en Italie , 1749 (quoted from Griseri), p. 9.
2. ^ Christian Norberg-Schulz: Spätbarock und Rokoko , Stuttgart 1985, p. 140

Coordinates: 44 ° 59 ′ 42 ″  N , 7 ° 36 ′ 14 ″  E