Location: Racconigi Map
Constructed: 11th century
Castle of Racconigi is located in Racconigi, Piedmont region of Italy. Its construction began in the 11th century. Over centuries Castle of Racconigi changed its appearance several times to serve as a residency of the Royal House of Savoy. Today the palace is designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site and it is open to the public. Castle of Racconigi is surrounded by a beautiful landscape park that was designated and created by Emmanuel Philiberto. In the late 18th century it was remodeled in a more English style to follow the fashion style of the period.
The first news of a
fortification in Racconigi dates back to the 11th century, when the
territory was part of the Marca di Torino and where Bernardino di
Susa built or adapted an ancient stronghold, on the remains of a
previous monastery.
In 1091, on the death of the Marquise
Adelaide of Susa, the territories were occupied by his nephew
Bonifacio del Vasto and the fief of Racconigi then became part of
the possessions of the Marquises of Saluzzo.
Subsequently,
the nephew of Bonifacio del Vasto Manfredo II of Saluzzo enlarged
the existing structure by raising a first square-plan castle with an
internal courtyard, making it a strategic defense for the
territories of the marquisate.
In 1372 the Marquis
Federico II of Saluzzo ceded the castle to the Falletti counts as a
pledge but after a few years it returned to the property of the
Marquises of Saluzzo. Finally, in the second half of the fourteenth
century, an illegitimate son of Ludovico, the last prince of
Savoy-Acaia, obtained the fiefdom and the castle of Racconigi,
starting the dynastic line of the Savoy-Racconigi extinct in 1605.
In 1620 the Duke Carlo Emanuele I of Savoy gave it to his son
Tommaso Francesco di Savoia, founder of the Savoy-Carignano dynasty.
At the time, the structure looked like a classic medieval castle: a
massive bare brick fortress with a square plan, with four large
corner towers, moat, drawbridge and a tall side keep.
"... it
was originally more suited to stifle the rush of hostile weapons
rather than a pleasant residence, because it was equipped with
sturdy towers on the corners, and ditches around, and battlements
..."
The structure of the structure, which remained almost
unchanged until the middle of the seventeenth century, was subjected
to a first alteration at the behest of Tommaso's son, Emanuele
Filiberto, who commissioned the first, complete transformation of
the fortress into a "delight" from Guarino Guarini . Using the large
internal space of the court, he raised a large central body with a
"pagoda" roof; moreover, on the basis of the two corner towers of
the northern facade, he developed the two four-storey pavilions,
surmounted by a quadrangular domed roof with white marble lanterns.
However, Guarini's grandiose project not only involved the building,
but also saw the assistance of the well-known French architect André
Le Nôtre, who took care of the reorganization of the vast park. When
the works were completed, on 7 November 1684 Emanuele Filiberto
married Racconigi Maria Caterina D'Este.
Starting from 1757, Ludovico Luigi Vittorio di Carignano commissioned the architect Giovanni Battista Borra to make a notable reworking according to the neoclassical taste typical of the time, to which we owe the reconstruction of the southern facade with the addition of the tetrastyle porch with Corinthian columns surmounted by the pediment triangular notched Palladian inspiration and the monumental staircase in front. The internal interventions, on the other hand, involved the Hall of Hercules, the adjoining Hall of Diana and the preparation of the rooms of the Chinese Apartment, decorated with precious rice paper wallpapers.
The
current appearance of the building is largely the result of the
remodeling wanted in 1832 by the last prince of Carignano, as well
as the new king of Sardinia, Carlo Alberto. He deemed it necessary
to further expand and embellish the residence, which from that
moment on ceased to belong to the Savoy-Carignano family to pass to
the crown of Sardinia, thus assuming the status of "royal
residence", as well as being elected seat of the "Reali
Villeggiature".
The sovereign entrusted the work to engineer
Ernesto Melano, who further raised the ancient quadrangular
structure around the central body and developed the two large side
sleeves of the southern façade, re-proposing the theme of the
"pagoda" dome as a cover for the two corner turrets. In addition,
the arrangement included the reconstruction of the square and the
construction of the "C" -shaped buildings that connect the new wings
of the south elevation to the rear pavilions of the northern facade.
At the same time as this intervention, a mill and some houses in
front of it were also demolished, which hid the castle from view,
giving rise to the large square in front of the main entrance, in
line with the long tree-lined avenue in front.
The interiors were instead rearranged to meet the needs of the
time, entrusting the work to Pelagio Palagi, who redecorated the new
rooms while maintaining consistency with the neoclassical taste. The
cabinetmaker from Asti also worked with him, Gabriele Capello, known
as "il Moncalvo", of whom one remembers, among the numerous works
preserved in the castle, the precious inlays that adorn the
furnishings and doors of the Etruscan Cabinet, the personal study of
King Charles Alberto.
Starting from 1834, the west gallery
was the object of the work of the painter Marco Antonio Trefogli,
who decorated it with refined grotesques, depicting fruit and birds.
Together with Luigi Cinnati, Trefogli also created ornaments and
arabesques for the reception room and the dining room. For Carlo
Alberto's bathroom, he painted floral motifs in the ornamental
bands, as well as grotesques, amphorae, shells, swans and griffins,
while in the frieze above the cornice figures of dragons alternating
with spirals were inserted.
The arrangement of the park, on
the other hand, was entrusted to the German landscape architect
Xavier Kurten, who transformed the previous work of Le Nôtre in
favor of a romantic setting. The project and construction of the
Margarìa, the neo-Gothic style farmhouse located at the end of the
park, again the result of the collaboration of Ernesto Melano and
Pelagio Palagi, is also from these years. It was in the avenues of
this park on 19 August 1840 that the first meeting took place,
organized by their respective families, between Prince Vittorio
Emanuele, the future first king of Italy and his first wife, as well
as cousin Maria Adelaide of Habsburg-Lorraine. The two married two
years later (1842) at the hunting lodge of Stupinigi and the
marriage was born, among other children, the Crown Prince Umberto I.
In the following years, Carlo
Alberto's successors visited the residence less assiduously;
however, with the coming to the throne of Vittorio Emanuele III in
July 1900, the residence once again became the seat of the "royal
holidays" in the summer and autumn months. In 1901 the castle was
equipped with water and electricity systems, with a new lighting
system along the entire walls of the park, and in 1902 a Stigler
lift was installed. Also Vittorio Emanuele III was responsible for
the decoration of the internal walls of the Staircase of Honor, one
of which shows one of the most complete genealogical representations
of the royal family, the work of Adolfo Dalbesio, also author of the
other four large canvases depicting the coats of arms of the House
Savoy.
According to the new needs of the royal family, many
rooms of the castle were modernized, including the apartment of the
kings on the second floor. Here, in 1904, the last king of Italy
Umberto II was born and a series of important events followed one
another: in 1909 the residence was the site of the visit of Tsar
Nicholas II, while in 1925 the wedding of Princess Mafalda took
place.
In 1930 Prince Umberto received the residence as a
gift, on the occasion of his wedding with Princess Maria José of
Belgium, celebrated in Rome. He was responsible for the meticulous
finding in the other Savoy residences of numerous family paintings,
now preserved in the various galleries and in the numerous
corridors, and a collection of documentation on the Shroud of Turin.
Some blocks of apartments on the second floor were also renovated,
including the bathrooms of the princes of Piedmont and the music
room, with ceilings and walls decorated in a futurist style by Fiore
Martelli, a pupil of the illustrious Giò Ponti.
Following the
results of the institutional referendum of June 2, 1946, the castle
was closed and taken over by the Italian state. The princesses
Jolanda, Giovanna and Maria and the heirs of the already deceased
Mafalda filed a lawsuit on the illegitimacy of the 1930 donation to
Umberto II. In fact the Court of Cassation in 1972 decreed that only
one fifth of the building was confiscable, that is the one owned by
Umberto II, but that the Italian State had to be guaranteed the
right of pre-emption, in case of sale to a private individual. In
1980, after thirty-four years of exile, Umberto II decided to sell
the entire property to the State, placing a single clause: that the
residence and all the properties attached to it were related to the
theme of "knowledge" and, therefore, that this would determine a use
intended for cultural activities of a popular nature.
Reopened on 23 May 1993 on the initiative of the councilor Pino Perrone through an agreement with the Superintendence of Environmental Heritage, the Racconigi Red Cross and Volunteers Fire Brigade, the residence is largely open to visitors and is the subject of constant conservative restorations aimed at preserving the structure and to restore the noble floors of the building to their former glory. The castle represents one of the best preserved Savoy residences, boasting an appreciable endowment of furnishings, paintings and furnishings and is constantly the seat of cultural events and activities.
The castle houses rooms created in the eighteenth
century, other neoclassical ones, up to including rooms in a deco
style dating back to the first half of the twentieth century.
Carefully restored, they maintain the original decorations and
settings preserved over the centuries.
Among them the most
relevant are, in chronological order: the Hercules room, the Diana
room, the Chinese apartment, the dining room, the reception room,
the famous Etruscan cabinet, the library of Carlo Alberto, the
cabinet of Apollo, and the royal chapel, dedicated to the Madonna
della Neve. On the second noble floor, instead, there are the
apartments renovated in the first three decades of the twentieth
century including: the bedroom of Queen Elena, the bathroom of
Umberto II and the living room of Maria José's Music.
Dedicated to the myth of Hercules, this room is the result of the intervention of 1757 by the architect Giovanni Battista Borra. The hall, in neoclassical style, corresponds to the ancient inner courtyard of the previous medieval structure and served as an atrium to welcome guests but, given the capacity and excellent acoustics, it was also used as a ballroom, positioning the orchestra on the « Loggia dei Musici », which surmounts the three pairs of Ionic columns and the access to the adjoining Hall of Diana. In the lower portion, the walls host six niches with pediments, which contain as many sculptures by Giuseppe Bolina representing the labors of Hercules; in the upper register there are other stuccos by Bolina and Lombardi, depicting hunting scenes with animals and weapons. The vault of the dome, on the other hand, is painted in trompe-l'œil and depicts a realistic lacunar roof.
Together with the Hall of Hercules and the Chinese Apartment, it represents the ensemble of the eighteenth-century rearrangements by the architect Giovanni Battista Borra. Used as the entrance hall to the residence, the Diana room is characterized by four large medallions depicting the myth of the goddess of the hunt. The large windows allow you to admire the glimpse of the vast park overlooked by the terrace and the staircase of the northern facade. Among the four large Murano chandeliers that hang from the ceiling, you can also admire a bas-relief depicting Apollo on the chariot of the Sun. Finally, the two marble fireplaces, the work of the famous Guarino Guarini, are of considerable value.
Built around the middle of the eighteenth century at the behest of Ludovico Luigi Vittorio di Carignano, the rooms of the Chinese Apartment were part of a larger space named royal guesthouse, including at least six other oriental-style rooms, according to the widespread fashion of the time. The five remaining rooms are characterized by the precious hand-painted wallpapers on rice paper, purchased in London by Prince Ludwig and perfectly preserved thanks to the application on special wooden frames. To complete the rooms are the furnishings, cloisonné vases, ancient porcelain, the two screens with Chinese decorations by the painter Carlo Cussetti and a Japanese sedan chair. These rooms, dedicated to distinguished guests, hosted Vittorio Emanuele II and Umberto I during their short holidays, but also illustrious guests such as Tsar Nicholas II who visited Racconigi in 1909.
Conceived as Carlo Alberto's private studio, it is, together with the reception room, Apollo's cabinet and the Albertina library, the nucleus of environments in which the sovereign carried out administrative and political duties during his royal vacations. The Etruscan Cabinet, located on the second floor, is one of the most important points of this residence, with works by Pelagio Palagi and cabinetmaker Gabriele Capello known as "Moncalvo". The charm of contemporary archaeological discoveries is abundantly re-proposed throughout the rich decorative apparatus of the studio, which reproduces typical stylistic features of Etruscan and Greek vase painting.
Made in the 1830s, it includes wall paintings divided into large
squares and a continuous frieze in the upper register. The floor is
made of mosaics, while on the ribbed vault are reproduced the
frescoes of the Baron's Tomb, located in the Etruscan necropolis of
Monterozzi (near Tarquinia), discovered in 1827.
The doors of
the two entrance doors, the armchairs, the center table and the
wooden bases on which the Etruscan vases rest show a complex inlay
depicting the twelve gods of Olympus by the cabinetmaker Gabriele
Capello, based on a design by Pelagio Palagi. In 1851, the center
table, a column base and a right door panel were presented at the
Great Exhibition held at the Crystal Palace in London; in addition
to the "Furniture" sector award, they received a special mention in
the exhibition catalog which defined them as «objects worthy of
occupying a place in the palace of every sovereign».
It is the most sumptuous castle environment, where the profusion of gilding evoked the prestige and power of the sovereign. Here Carlo Alberto and his successors hosted important personalities such as ambassadors, advisers and dignitaries. The ceiling, densely decorated with neoclassical motifs in gold leaf, bears the monogram of Carlo Alberto, also repeated in the furnishings and on the damask walls. The sofas and armchairs with monopod lions are upholstered in the typical Savoy blue; Finally, the large Bohemian crystal chandelier and the parure of neo-Gothic candelabra placed next to the mantel clock depicting the cathedral of Reims are of considerable value.
Accessible from the first
stretch of corridor F, now better known as the portrait gallery,
these apartments were modernized in the early twentieth century. It
is a series of modestly sized rooms, five of which are preceded by
an antechamber with attached services and a staircase connecting
with the mezzanine floor above. It has been argued that after 1901
they would have hosted the children of Vittorio Emanuele III, that
is the crown prince Umberto with his sisters Iolanda, Mafalda,
Giovanna and Maria. On this basis, the rooms were rearranged in 2007
by the Castle Management, which, despite the lack of archival
sources, chose to attribute the first three bedrooms to the
princesses Jolanda, Mafalda and Giovanna and the corner apartment to
Prince Umberto. larger and more spacious. Curiously, the set-up did
not envisage recreating the room of Princess Maria, even if the
youngest child of Vittorio Emanuele III, born in Rome in 1914, still
had the opportunity to stay several times in Racconigi.
Recent research has made it possible to formulate new hypotheses on
the actual location of the apartment of the little Savoyard princes
in the early decades of the twentieth century. Their apartment was,
in fact, set up not on the first floor (as is erroneously claimed in
some recently published guides), but on the second floor, near the
rooms of Queen Elena, more precisely in the Guarinian pavilion of
the east (current apartment called di Umberto II). It was also found
that the rooms located along the portrait gallery were actually
intended for various members of the court, including Queen Helen's
Lady and Gentleman of the Court. Each apartment, comfortably
disengaged, could communicate through a narrow staircase to the well
with the rooms reserved for the service personnel of the court
characters, personnel that in the lists of the Ministry of the Royal
House was defined "Private livery".
During the 1930s these
apartments certainly housed the children of Umberto II and Maria
José of Belgium, while the staff assigned to them housed in the
mezzanine above. From this fact probably derives the custom of
defining these rooms "apartment of the princes".
The long corridor that gives access to various apartments, mostly intended for guests or members of the court, takes its name from the iconographic collection patiently set up by Crown Prince Umberto II starting from the 1920s. Of great historical and artistic value, the numerous portraits exhibited here constitute a fairly complete dynastic journey, also including paintings by members of other Italian and European noble families. According to some sources, the environment would be devoid of decorations since this sleeve would have hosted, at the behest of Queen Margherita, the sick suffering from the typhoid fever that hit Racconigi towards the end of the nineteenth century. To heal the premises it would have been necessary to apply a few layers of lime before and after the patients' hospitalization, to the detriment of the pre-existing decorations. However, it should be noted that still in 1901 and 1902 some restorers were paid for the restoration of the existing paintings in the gallery and that, only in 1903, it was decided to change "the wall decoration to a painting, with another in stucco and frames apply family portraits in the same ".
Already occupied in the nineteenth century by King Carlo Alberto and Queen Maria Teresa, by the Dukes of Savoy (the future Vittorio Emanuele II and Maria Adelaide of Habsburg), by their children and by the knight of honor of Queen Maria Teresa, the second floor noble residence was completely renovated from the early twentieth century. The déco taste of this period strongly characterized the rooms, giving it a sobriety and an elegance more similar to bourgeois life, rather than the ostentatious pomp typical of a royal residence.
Queen Elena chose a modern setting for her bedroom, emphasized by the elegant double bed in a deco style to share with her husband, which until then was unusual in similar contexts. The room also features Edwardian-style white lacquered furniture, made by the famous English company Warings & Gillow, which seems to recall the nautical furnishings of the bedroom of the royal yacht that hosted the future sovereigns during their honeymoon to the island. of Montecristo. In this room, on September 15, 1904, Elena of Montenegro gave birth to the last king of Italy, Umberto II.
Built in the space that previously housed the antechamber of Vittorio Emanuele II's apartment, the bathroom was built in 1930 at the behest of Prince Umberto II, commissioning Fiore Martelli, a student at the ISIA in Monza, to create the wallpapers. ; by his teacher Gio Ponti, on the other hand, are the deco-style furnishings and bathroom fixtures. As in Queen Elena's bathroom, here too there are the major technological innovations of the time such as the running water system, heating and linoleum flooring.
Princess Maria José's apartment was built in correspondence with the nineteenth-century rooms reserved for the lady of the palace. Among all the rooms stands out the Music room where she loved to entertain her guests and listen to music. Completed in the summer of 1931, the room features a ceiling decorated by Fiore Martelli with stylized motifs depicting musical instruments. Among the furnishings it is worth noting a Frau armchair, a gramophone, the Venini chandelier in Murano glass and a painting of the young princess by Gregorio Calvi di Bergolo, part of his private collection which also boasts the presence of paintings by Casorati and Severini, admirable in the adjacent living room.
"In the cellars there is the kitchen, with the annexed rooms; the kitchen compartment is 15.50 meters long, its width is 10.50 meters with" potaggiere "and machines made by De Zana who came expressly from Vienna; on the south side there are woods, cellars and charcoal pits.
Built at the same time as the east extension, these
characteristic kitchens were a real example of modernity: equipped
with a wide range of dishes, molds, tools, marble sinks, two large
wood-burning kitchens, the so-called "potaggiere", over time they
were also equipped with other "economic" kitchens and an ingenious
gear rotisserie in the large fireplace in the center of the room. In
1903, with the advent of electricity, lighting and a new plumbing
system with a hot water boiler were installed. Coordinating the
so-called Bocca Offices was an inspector in charge, who had his
office next to the main hall that houses the kitchens. In the
adjoining rooms you can also see the icebox and the butcher's shop,
characterized by the marble cladding on the walls and the sloping
floor to facilitate drainage and the relative washing operations.
Further rooms dedicated to the original tasks of "provisional,
fruit-making, someglieria, credenza, vassella and lingeria" are
located on the ground floor, in the rooms previously used for the
ancient seventeenth-century kitchen; as the original names suggest,
they were the premises responsible for the conservation and
management of food supplies, fruit, wines, drinks and the rich set
of dishes and tablecloths.
The castle
faces north towards an imposing French-style park of about 170
hectares, bordered by a 6 km long wall. At the end of the
seventeenth century the park appeared according to the geometric
rigor conferred on it by the French architect André Le Nôtre, the
same author of the gardens of the Palace of Versailles.
About
a century later, at the behest of Princess Giuseppina of
Lorraine-Armagnac, the park saw a transformation by Giacomo
Pregliasco, who redesigned a part of it, offering new paths immersed
in a luxuriant and apparently wild nature. The completion of the
park in the romantic style, as it appears today, is due to Carlo
Alberto, who in 1836 entrusted the work to the Prussian landscape
architect Xavier Kurten. He dedicated himself to the reorganization
of the lake, the avenues and the waterways and, with the addition of
bridges, hills and new rows of trees, he made it a typical 19th
century park.
The Roda brothers took over the direction of
the park: Marcellino from 1843 to 1859 and Pietro Giuseppe from 1860
to 1870. Under their management, the royal park acquired fame at
European level for the vast production of rare flowers and exotic
fruit plants that two brothers cultivated flowers and fruit in the
gardens and in the new heated greenhouse commissioned by Carlo
Alberto.
Between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the
park was mainly used as a hunting reserve and agricultural estate,
so much so that some small portions were reserved for crops of corn
and cereals. However, from the Second World War onwards there was a
certain lack of maintenance and a progressive state of abandonment.
From the reopening of the castle on 24 May 1993 onwards, the
park has also been the subject of a series of careful restoration
interventions, aimed at restoring it to the appearance given to it
by Kurten in the nineteenth century. Once again open to the public,
the park offers a great variety of protected plant and animal
species, a network of avenues and paths with a total development of
25 km, water basins (including the 18-hectare lake), large flower
beds and , like the castle, it is a regular place for cultural
activities and events.
In 2010 the park was chosen among the
top ten finalists and then declared the winner in the competition
The most beautiful parks of Italy 2010; also in the same year the
park hosted the International Sculpture Biennial as part of the
International Sculpture initiative in Racconigi, 2010. Present and
past experience.
The park contains over 2,000 trees, some of which reach heights of over thirty meters. The most common are the ash and maple trees but there is no lack of horse chestnuts, oaks, elms, hornbeams, ailanti, plane trees, limes and cedars. There are also sporadic fruit trees such as apple, cherry and hazel. The largest trees in the park are an oriental plane tree 42 meters high, whose trunk with a circular section has a development of about 6 meters and a 35 meters high zelkova, about two hundred years old. This last botanical species, with its stem of 8.45 meters in circumference, is the largest specimen in Piedmont.
The innermost part of the park is populated by various species of birds: gray herons, egrets, ducks, brown kites, buzzards and woodpeckers. The now famous Racconigi storks, on the other hand, nest above all on the cusps of the Margarìa and on the chimneys of the castle. In addition to birds, the presence of squirrels and even badgers and foxes is reported.
As
mentioned, the park is crossed by a network of canals that converge
allowing the constant water exchange of the lake, otherwise destined
for evaporation or swamping. This canalization system draws water
from the nearby Maira stream through the Brunetta canal, which then
distributes it to the various secondary canals that run through the
park. A small dock was also set up on the lakeshore, no longer
usable, for mooring small boats for trips on the lake and in the
canals.
Buildings in the park
In the second half of the
eighteenth century, the scenographer Giacomo Pregliasco, at the same
time as the rearrangement of part of the park in a romantic style,
built small but significant constructions such as the hermitage and
a small Gothic church which later became Fagianaia, for the breeding
of pheasants and doves.
Another prominent building is the
Doric Temple, deliberately incomplete to give the effect of a ruin
that has survived to this day, located on a hill by the lake. This
typically romantic place was dear to Carlo Alberto's grandmother,
Giuseppina di Lorena-Armagnac and houses the so-called Grotta del
Mago Merlino, a small artificial tunnel covered with plaster mixed
with glittering stones and contextual installations of stalactites,
stalagmites from the Bossea caves , in the valleys of the
Monregalese. The cave is dedicated to the legendary figure of
Merlin, who would have been seduced by a woman, the Lady of the
Lake, who would have made him lose his powers; the cave therefore
had the symbolic function of evoking the legend of the Savoy rulers,
to protect them from counterproductive amorous passions.
| Latin «Siste Viator sapientis Merlini cineres incipiens quo usque nos ducat cerus amor prudens recogita» (Giuseppina di Lorena-Armagnac) |
Stop, o traveler, the ashes of wise Merlin that lead to the deer love lead us to reflect prudently. |
Also worthy of attention in the park is the Russian dacha, a
formerly adapted construction. The structure is home to the park
library. Also noteworthy is the Palazzina Svizzera at the eastern
entrance of the castle.
Of great value is the so-called rural
complex of Margarìa, a neo-Gothic style farmhouse designed by Palagi
and precursor of modern organic farms. Located at the north-western
end of the park, it is characterized by the integral brick cladding
and the large internal porch. In the tower on the right of the main
façade of the Margarìa there is the Reposoir della Regina,
containing neo-Gothic furnishings by Gabriele Capello. Inside the
Margarìa complex there is also the elegant structure of the Royal
Greenhouses, the work of Carlo Sada, with a state-of-the-art heating
system for the time.