Palazzo Taffini d'Acceglio

Behind a severe façade on via Sant'Andrea hides a distinctive courtyard: twin arcaded galleries on paired sandstone columns, a first-floor hall frescoed with the battles of Duke Vittorio Amedeo I, and three rococo salons whose ceilings hide older treasures. The palace, built for the Taffini d'Acceglio marquises, now houses the MÚSES museum.

Why it matters

The palace is considered among the most important historic buildings of Savigliano, an exception to the city's usual architecture for the refinement of its lines. It was built for the marchesi Taffini d'Acceglio, a great family of military men in the service of the House of Savoy, on plots acquired from 1603, with construction around 1620; on the death of Colonel Camillo Taffini in 1629 it passed to his heir Giusto Aurelio. Tradition attributes the design to Ercole Negri di Sanfront, the military engineer-architect, in 1622. From 1726 to 1731 it was the residence of Princess Isabella of Savoy-Carignano — a building woven directly into dynastic history.

What to notice

Contrast is the palace's language. The austere street frontage on via Sant'Andrea gives way to two elegant inner fronts overlooking the courtyard: a portico surmounted by two airy galleries carried on paired Doric-order columns of warm sandstone, an architecture of sober grandeur. The frescoed salone presents six military scenes celebrating Vittorio Amedeo I’s campaigns in the early seventeenth century. The municipal page attributes the cycle to the circle of Giovanni Antonio Molineri, in particular to the Flemish painter Jean Claret and Giovenale Boetto.

Beside the salone, three eighteenth-century salons of exquisite rococo taste, decorated around 1760–1771, conceal lowered vaults of stucco behind which rest frescoes of the Molineri school and coffered ceilings rediscovered only in 1978 — a literal layering of the palace's history.

Context and history

From 1898 the palace housed the Istituto delle Rosine, an educational institution, during the twentieth century. The MÚSES museum presents scent-themed installations within the frescoed and stuccoed rooms. The pairing of early-seventeenth-century ducal imagery and eighteenth-century rococo decoration under one roof makes it a compact lesson in noble patronage in the Savoyard states.