The Duchess's bedroom

Photo Jacopo Baccani 2020

Drawing room with the portrait of the Duchess of Galliera by Léon Cogniet and the two jambs by Felix Duban

From 1686 to 1687 Gregorio De Ferrari was engaged, with his father-in-law Domenico Piola, in the fresco decoration of the second noble floor of Palazzo Rosso, for the commission of Gio. Francesco I Brignole - Sale (1643 - 1694): starting from the hall, passing through the four rooms to the east until you get to the south loggia facing the sea, a unified and coherent iconographic project has as its central theme the symbolic identity between Apollo the god of the Sun, who with his chariot marks the rhythm of the days, and the client Brignole - Sale, whose heraldic coat of arms, a rampant Lion, coincides significantly with the zodiacal sign of summer, the season of the sun. The decoration of the salon, created by Gregorio De Ferrari and fulcrum of this complex figurative system, revolved around the mythical figure of Phaeton, son of Apollo, and brought to the corners the coats of arms of the clients, the Brignole and his wife Maria Durrës. Unfortunately, this decoration was destroyed after the bombing of the Second World War. Following the salons dedicated to the allegories of the Four Seasons, iconographically connected to the general symbolic plan as emblems of the passage of time. In the first two rooms, still in the hands of De Ferrari, Spring and Summer triumph at the center of two times framed by stuccoes by Giacomo Maria Muttone. In the Summer Room, Ceres, goddess of the harvest, in flight beside a putto holding a great golden bundle of ears, prevails over the winter winds driven out by the Aura, while the center of the composition is still dominated by the figure of Apollo-Sun accompanied by a lion, this time alluding also - as already in the salon - to the sign of the zodiac and therefore precisely to the summer, in a pleasant game of references between astrology and dynastic celebration. Fresco allegory of spring and summer.

Domenico Piola painted the vaults of the last two east rooms of the second noble floor of Palazzo Rosso between 1687 and 1688, as evidenced by the balances of payments
concerning him. It was the period after his return from the flight-trip undertaken in 1684, following the French bombardment of the city, which took him to various places in northern Italy and especially to Parma, where he had the opportunity to compare and update on the correct solutions his way of conceiving the painted space in relation to the architectural. This experience, and, together, the contact with Gregorio De Ferrari, his son-in-law and pupil, gave his language a looser lightness, especially in the practice of a lighter and less full-bodied use of color, which combines the taste for open space and for the composition intended rotating.
These elements can be seen in the design of the rooms with the allegories of Autumn and Winter, where Domenico made use of the collaboration of stucco plastererGiacomo Muttone and the Bolognese quadraturist Stefano Monchi.
The theme of Autumn is resolved with the traditional representation of the triumph of Bacchus. The vault depicts, immersed in a clear diffused light, the god, however, not intent, in wild festivities, but young, beardless, seized in a moment of calm tenderness when, upon arriving in the island of Nasso, met Ariadne, abandoned there by Theseus, He fell in love with her and wanted her to be his bride. The result is a painting in which drawing as a structuring element of the image gives way to the color that, through light light light light traps, shapes the bodies and spatial planes.
The Bacchic tiaso, animated and lively, is relegated to the margins of the composition: Sileno ebbro, baccanti, centauri, satiri and the animals dear to Dioniso - goats, panthers, monkeys - master lunettes and peducci with more vivid and plastic chromatic registers, in pleasant, dialoguing contrast with the vault.
The beautiful golden stucco frieze that runs along the four sides of the room, in a continuous succession of vine shoots, as well as reiterating the theme of the season, gives the inspiration for the decorative motif of the frame of the large mirror placed between the windows.

Domenico Piola painted the vaults of the last two east rooms of the second noble floor of Palazzo Rosso between 1687 and 1688, as evidenced by the balances of payments
concerning him. It is the period after his return from the flight-trip undertaken in 1684, following the French bombardment of the city, which took him to various places in northern Italy and especially to Parma, where he had the opportunity to compare and update on the correct solutions his way of conceiving the painted space in relation to the architectural. This experience, and, together, the contact with Gregorio De Ferrari, his son-in-law and pupil, gave his language a looser lightness, especially in the practice of a lighter and less full-bodied use of color, which combines the taste for open space and for the composition in a rotating sense.
These elements can be seen in the design of the rooms with the allegories of Autumn and Winter, where Domenico made use of the collaboration of the plasterer Giacomo Muttone and the Bolognese quadraturist Stefano Monchi.
In the Winter Room, Piola implements absolute freedom in the layout of the space. The plastic intertwining of the bodies of the winter winds, contrasts Winter, exceptionally young and dressed in light, which warms at the brazier, with behind March or Favonio, while allusions to carnival and hunting, enriched with animals and exotic characters, move the edges of the vault, barely contained by a mighty painted balustrade.  Scenes of banquets, musicians, idleness, playful fights, or games of children, make the reading of this fresco, from the point of view of both thematic and perception of the painted space, an effect accentuated by the architectural perspectives trompe-l'oeil made by Nicolò Codazzi on the walls.