Audience Chamber or Room of the Putti

Audience Chamber or Room of the Putti, formerly the apartment of the Dukes of Aosta, Princess Beatrice’s Audience Chamber

The bedroom of Princess Maria Beatrice, the eldest child of the Dukes of Aosta, has a decorated ceiling with groups of putti looking over a balustrade, intent on playing games or instruments. Painted by Giovenale Bongiovanni of Monregale, they are dated to 1793-94. On the two short sides, there are two panels with the symbols of the princess’s royal parents, surrounded by other putti: the lion of Val d’Aosta and the double-headed eagle of the Habsburgs.
The room is completed with the presence of lintels and paintings for trumeaux belonging to the same period, also by Giovenale Bongiovanni; these were returned to their original site in 2004. Recent studies have shown these works to be of considerable quality; as protagonists, they have young maidens dressed as peasants, together with children and young lovers, in an iconogprahy typical of the arcadian taste of the 18th century. The walls present some fragments of wallpaper with floral motifs dating from the same period.
One of the windows of the room gives on to an 18th-century wrought-iron balcony with the monogram of Victor Amadeus II, dating to between 1711 and 1713, namely the years in which Michelangelo Garove worked at Rivoli.

Did you know?

Maria Beatrice of Savoy
(Turin, 1792 – Modena, 1840)

The eldest daughter of Victor Emmanuel and Maria Teresa of Austria-Este. Destined to a life of privilege, she lived through a historic period that was extremely dramatic for the Savoys and for all Europe in the years between the French Revolution and the Restoration.
On 20 June 1812, with a papal dispensation Maria Beatrice married her maternal uncle, Francis, Archduke of Austria-Este. On 14 June 1814, her husband became Francis IV, Duke of Modena, Reggio and Mirandola; one of his deeds was condemning Ciro Menotti, an Italian patriot, to death.
During the Congress of Vienna, there was talk of Maria Beatrice ascending the throne to the Kingdom of Sardinia, although only males had risen to the throne in the Savoy household since 1307.
At the end of the session on 3 December 1814, it was announced that the succession was male through the eldest son in both the reigning branch and in that of the Savoia-Carignano, so if there were no heirs, Carlo Alberto would have become king of Sardinia.
Curiously, for British Catholics Maria Beatrice was also the legitimate sovereign of Scotland and England, these rights having been inherited from the Savoys via the distant cousin, Henry Benedict Stuart, Cardinal of York.
A lover of painting and literature, she wrote two librettos for opera, “il Ruggiero” and “Antigono”, and like many sovereigns of her time, dedicated herself to charity works.