Galleria Grande

One gallery condenses everything Venaria Reale set out to be. The Galleria Grande — begun by Michelangelo Garove and completed by Filippo Juvarra in 1716 — combines arched windows and stucco at the heart of the palace, a ducal promenade built for display and today the signature image of the whole complex.

Why it matters

A great gallery is an instrument of court choreography: a long, straight, brilliantly lit stage on which processions, promenades and encounters were performed. At Venaria the Galleria Grande was begun by Michelangelo Garove as part of the early-eighteenth-century effort to match the great residences of Europe, and it passed unfinished at his death in 1713 to Filippo Juvarra, who completed it in 1716 at the start of his decade of work on the palace. Its restoration was one of the signature achievements of the 1999–2007 campaign, and the room reopened as the emblem of the whole complex — the image that now represents the Reggia in official presentations.

What to notice

The gallery's long walls are lined with arched windows, while stuccoed spandrels and medallions frame its restrained architectural rhythm. A black-and-white chequered floor extends the perspective along the room. The gallery connects the palace interior with the garden axis and forms part of the architectural composition developed from Garove's design and completed by Juvarra.

Context and history

The gallery belongs to the palace's second building phase. After French troops damaged the residence in 1693, Vittorio Amedeo II pursued an agenda of rivalling Versailles and hired Michelangelo Garove in 1699; Garove built the corner pavilions and started the Great Gallery, which remained incomplete at his death in 1713. Filippo Juvarra, entrusted with the palace in 1716, brought the gallery to completion that same year before moving on to the church of Sant'Uberto, the Citroneria and the monumental stables. Benedetto Alfieri's later unification of the wings between 1739 and 1761 left the gallery as the palace's spine. The Napoleonic barracks period and military ownership stripped the interior of its original furnishings, and full recovery came only with the restoration campaign of 1999 to 2007 that preceded the palace's public reopening in October 2007. As part of the Reggia, the gallery is covered by the UNESCO inscription of the Savoy residences of 1997.