Salone centrale, Palazzo Stupinigi, Torino

Speranza

The grandiose Palazzo Stupinigi, designed by Juvarra as a hunting lodge for Vittorio Amedeo II, was begun in 1729.

The ballroom, or "salone centrale", forms the centre of a fabulous design.

The ballroom, the work of Giambattista Crosato in collaboration with the architect, is a superb piece of illusionism, though here the effect is contrived with the aid of stucco.

The busts in the oval recesses are three-dimensional, but the flutes on the piers and on the brackets and the articulation of the walls with shell niches and apparent reliefs of putti and foliage are all coutnerfeit.