Detail from The Dance of the Hours (1839-58) on the ceiling of the ballroom in the Palazzo Reale, Turin © Palazzo Reale, Turin
This monograph by Bertrand de Royere is a scholarly and well illustrated book on Pelagio Palagi (1775-1860), perhaps Italys greatest interior decorator. It covers his work at the Palazzo ReItalyale in Turin and the royal residences outside at Racconigi and Pollenzo for King Carlo Alberto (reigned 1831-49). The main text supplies an account of Palagis life and times, his sources and his place within the European context, as compared, say, with Von Klenze at the Residenz at Munich or Briullov at the Winter Palace at St Petersburg. The copious appendices provide Palagis brief autobiography and an examination of each residence that focuses on inventories, contents, artists and suppliers, each of whom gets his own potted biography. In addition, De Royere obligingly supplies a guide to the various archives he consulted in Turin and Bologna, where Palagis library survives virtually intact in the Archiginnasio.
Stendhals reference to “le célèbre Palagi, peintre de Bologne” reminds us that Palagi was regarded by his contemporaries as a painter and also a native of Bologna, not Turin. His autobiography places more emphasis on the large canvases, murals and ceilings he executed in Milan than his work for Carlo Alberto. It was in Bologna that he embarked on his artistic career at the age of 12, under the pupilage of Count Carlo Aldrovandi, who advocated copying the Bolognese masters Guido Reni and Domenichino. Once established there, he took on, as pupils, Vitale Sala and Carlo Bellosio, who were both Bolognese. They would later paint large ceilings at Racconigi—not that they eclipsed their master and his tour de force, The Dance of the Hours (1839-58), on the ceiling of the ballroom of the Royal Palace in Turin.
Turin is to furniture historians what Florence is to art historians, and it owes its position partly to Palagi and his cabinetmaker, Gabrielle Capello, and the work they did for Carlo Alberto from 1832 onwards. Indeed, the king gave him virtual carte blanche to design whatever he wanted, and his creations were executed by a “regiment of artificers”—Giuseppe Gaggini who provided marble chimneypieces, the Manfredini brothers the bronze mounts, and Capello the richly ornamented furniture, as well as Jeanselme of Paris and Henry Peters of Genoa (although originally from Windsor!).
Some might find Italian Neo-Classical painting, including Palagis work, rather cold and lapidary, but no one can deny that Palagi excelled at ornament. His use was exuberant and derived from Greek, Roman and Etruscan sources. These came partly from his vast library and partly from his own personal collection of antiquities. Furthermore, Baron Von Stackelbergs discovery in 1827 of “the Barons Tomb” with its well preserved murals at Tarquinia inspired new interpretations of Etruscan art, as manifested in the Gabinetto Etrusco at Racconigi. All this chimed in with Carlo Albertos passionate belief in Italian reunification and the importance of the Etruscans as an Italian ciRead More – Source
