Filippo Juvarra

Architect from Messina (1678-1736), first architect to Vittorio Amedeo II from 1714: his works include Superga, the staircase of Palazzo Madama, the Galleria Grande at Venaria and Stupinigi.

Image from the La Venaria Reale publication — From the La Venaria Reale publication

Filippo Juvarra (Messina, 27 March 1678 – Madrid, 31 January 1736) is the architect who, more than any other, gave Turin the face of a Baroque capital. Summoned in 1714 by Vittorio Amedeo II, in little more than twenty years he designed the Basilica di Superga, the façade and staircase of Palazzo Madama, the Galleria Grande at Venaria, the hunting lodge of Stupinigi and the plan for the city's western expansion^[1]^[2].

From Messina to Rome

Son of Pietro, a silversmith, and of Eleonora Tafurri, he grew up in his father's silversmith workshop and soon began ecclesiastical studies: he took priestly vows in 1703. The following year, in the summer of 1704, he was in Rome, where he trained himself as an autodidact on Vitruvius, Vignola and Andrea Pozzo, and then at the school of Carlo Fontana, then the most influential architect in the city^[1].

His Roman career was extremely rapid. On 7 May 1705 he won, on the Capitoline Hill, the Concorso Clementino of the Accademia di San Luca with a design for a “villa for three persons”; on 31 December 1706 he became a member and on 26 April 1707 the sole teacher of architecture there^[1].

First architect to the king

The Treaty of Utrecht of 1713 had given Vittorio Amedeo II the crown of Sicily, and the new king sought an architect equal to his rank. Juvarra entered his service as “first civil architect”: according to the Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani he took his oath on 14 December 1714, while according to MuseoTorino the appointment is dated the following day^[1]^[2]. From then on he drew up for the sovereign the programme for renewing the capital, which MuseoTorino sums up in the principle of a “diffused centrality”^[2].

His first test was the western expansion towards Porta Susina, which occupied him from 1716 to 1728. Here he introduced a new model: the Quartieri Militari, a single building block cut in half by the entrance road, with porticoes and a giant architectural order, conceived as a monumental gateway to the city^[1]^[2]. In those same years he was working on the church of Santa Cristina in piazza San Carlo (1715-1718), on the rebuilding of San Filippo Neri and on Santa Croce^[1].

Superga, a vow for a victory

During the siege of 1706 Vittorio Amedeo II had promised to fund a church on the hill of Superga if his troops repelled the French^[3]. Juvarra was given the commission: the basilica, at 669 metres above sea level, has a circular plan preceded by a pronaos and a dome set on a tall drum, between two wings with bell towers; behind it stands the convent, also to his design^[4]. The dates of construction vary by source: 1715-1727/31 according to the Dizionario Biografico, 1717-1731 according to Treccani and the Touring Club^[1]^[4]^[5]. The church was inaugurated on 1 November 1731^[3]. In its crypt rest the kings and princes of the House of Savoy, from Vittorio Amedeo II to Carlo Alberto^[5].

Palazzo Madama: a staircase without a house

For the second Madama Reale, Maria Giovanna Battista, Juvarra designed between 1718 and 1721 the new western façade of the old castle and its two-flight staircase. He would have liked a completely open loggia, but Turin's climate forced him to close it in with large glass windows^[6]. Prints of 1721, engraved by his pupil Filippo Vasconi, show a more ambitious project, meant to wrap the entire castle in new wings, which was never completed^[6]. The façade, facing via Dora Grossa (today via Garibaldi), serves as a scenic backdrop to the street^[2]. The German traveller Carl Ludwig von Pöllnitz noted in 1731^[6]:

«Before the staircase was built it used to be said that the palace of Madama Reale was like a house without a staircase; today it is said to be a staircase without a house»
Carl Ludwig von Pöllnitz, 1731

In 1722, for the wedding of Carlo Emanuele III, it was again Juvarra who oversaw the decorations and lit the palace with 450 torches and candles^[6].

The residences of the court

At Venaria Reale he completed the southern wing begun by Michelangelo Garove: from it came the Galleria Grande, about 80 metres long, 12 metres wide and 15 metres high at the top of the vault, lit by 44 large windows and 22 oval openings^[7]. The original floor was removed during the French occupation; the current one was remade in 1995 to his design^[7]. Next to it rose the chapel of Sant'Uberto, begun in 1716 and completed in 1729, with a truncated Greek-cross plan and a main altar by Giovanni Baratta^[8].

In 1715 he prepared a new design for the castle of Rivoli, left suspended from 1720^[1]. At Palazzo Reale he built the Scala delle Forbici (1720-1721) and later the Galleria della Regina and the private archives; he had the bell tower of the Cathedral raised (1720-1723), designed a new Teatro Regio in 1730 and, in the 1730s, the palace of the Court Archives and the State Secretariats, part of a “General Plan” of 1730 for the hub of power around the royal palace^[1]^[2]. From 1729 Stupinigi took shape, a residence for hunting and festivities built on land belonging to the Ordine Mauriziano, with its great elliptical hall at the centre^[9]; the Dizionario Biografico calls it a “palimpsest geared to the celebration of the pleasures of the court”^[1]. From 1740 Benedetto Alfieri enlarged it for Carlo Emanuele III^[9].

A taste for the simple

Despite his reputation as a stage designer, in 1725 Juvarra described himself as a lover of “the solidity of art, according to the teaching of Vitruvius and Palladio and of all the most celebrated authors […] and of the simplicity in which every art recognizes […] its own perfection”^[1]. Between 1718 and 1719 he was in Lisbon at the invitation of João V, who made him a knight of the Order of Christ, and he returned to Turin via London and Paris^[1]. In Turin he also built his own house and studio on via San Domenico (1724-1726) and started the church of the Carmine (1732-1736)^[1].

Madrid and his legacy

Summoned by Philip V of Spain for the new royal palace, he arrived in Madrid on 1 April 1735 and also worked for Aranjuez and La Granja de San Ildefonso. He died there of pneumonia on 31 January 1736; the palace was built in reduced form by his pupil Giovanni Battista Sacchetti^[1].

At Palazzo Madama, Juvarra's building site is still, in a sense, open: the four allegorical statues on the balustrade, carved by Giovanni Baratta in 1726 in Brossasco marble and over four metres tall, were lowered to the ground in July 2022 and restored. In September 2026 the City announced that the originals would be placed in the Galleria Carlo Emanuele I, with copies returning to the terrace^[10].

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