The Chinese Mansion. The Chinese Mansion History
At Christmas 1798, fleeing the turmoil of Naples, the royal couple landed at Palermo Ferdinando and Carolina of Bourbon, which was welcomed by the nobility of Palermo. The king, fond of hunting, bought by the nobles of the time Ajroldi Palermo, Salerno, Pietratagllata, Niscemi. Vannucci, Malvern Lombardo and a good chunk of flat land located in the hills, to build a reserve where give vent to his passion for hunting. By royal edicts expropriated estates and kept up to build a park area of \u200b\u200b400 hectares, which reached the slopes of Monte Pellegrino, was born the Royal Park of Favorita.
in the soil of Italy is just a quirky little house of Chinese-style, for his whimsical sports is reported in the writings of the period and also depicted in a painting by Pietro Martorana, built before 1797.
The king did not have to regret this architectural caprice, so that charged the most famous architect of the time of Palermo, Giuseppe Venanzio Marvuglia (1729 - 1814), to renovate the building without changing the style.
Although a neoclassical architect, Marvuglia shows considerable compositional skills and vast knowledge in dealing with a theme that is unusual for a client of exception.
The building has three floors and a basement, and the two main elevations have a central semi-circular portico with six marble columns, ended by a bizarre crown on which is the eastern terrace. The porch south elevation is high above and can be reached by two symmetrical staircases, rotated almost 45 °, each of three flights. The reason of the stairs outside of imaginative design for the entire period was a recurring theme of Baroque architecture of suburban villas in Palermo, built many of the Plains and Hills Bagheria.
The Basement overlooking the outside with a porch with pointed arches of Gothic memory. The central part of the building rises over the rest and ends with the "observatory" or "room of the winds," an indoor environment octagonal pagoda. The lower wings have two terraces with strange beams pierced.
the first floor is also a balcony where you can still access the original two towers (built in 1806 by master builder Joseph Patricola real), which house stairs "a snail" detached from the body of the building, thus emphasizing the playful nature of ' building, also the colors of the rest of prospectuses, red, green, ocher, mauve on the bottom, it is perfectly suited to the style.
addition, every detail, from the canceled masonry piers of the gates, from lamps to picture frames, is strictly Chinese. The iron fence ending up with funny little bells that move in the wind.
The interior is enhanced taste exotic, brilliantly played by artists such as Benedict and Cotard Rosario Silvestri (Adorno), Vincenzo Riolo and Joseph Velasco (figure) and yet Giuseppe Patania Raymond and Joy, who move between the Chinese and Pompeii, including make-up and ruins the taste of , suggesting that in any case the original sense of space in harmony with the different features of the environments.
In the basement is the ballroom, decorated by Velasco in Louis XVI style, with fake ruins in the vault (fresco attributed to R. Gioia), a trompe-l'oleil highly effective, there is also room hearing room and bathroom with large oval tub encased in marble floor.
In raised floor, the banqueting hall has panels in silk, painted with juices of herbs in Chinese motifs, while the dining room has the famous "table math," designed by Marvuglia fitted with a device that allows " ups and downs "of the dishes with food from the kitchen directly below without the intervention of the household. Its mechanism was restored by the FAI delegation of Palermo, on the occasion of the Spring of 1999.
The bedroom of the king, with frescoes by G. Cotard and G. Velasco has a canopy with eight columns of white marble, the upstairs bedroom of Queen Maria Carolina is decorated in neo-classical style with frescoes attributed to Cotard. There is also a room "Turkish" with columns and a Pompeian-style.
