The Etruscan Dream of the House of Savoy

Carlo Alberto, a king of the House of Savoy, was excessively tall and sensitive to every shift in the wind. One of his many and contradictory dreams was to become a Lucumo, or Etruscan king. In one of his castles, Racconigi, he hired the eclectic architect Pelagio Palagi (1775-1860) to create an exceedingly elegant Etruscan-style room, which became his private den and office. People had claimed (and Carlo Alberto surely concurred), that the Etruscans, with their federation of independent city-states, had done more to civilize Italy than the Romans, with their empire. Indeed, a century later, the dream of restoring that empire became Mussolini’s favorite fantasy, one that would ultimately lead to the demise of the Savoy dynasty itself. In a room dedicated to a cheerful, colorful, and mysterious people, surrounded by motifs inspired by Etruscan vases and tombs and a reinterpretation of ancient graphic patterns, the King of Piemonte abandoned himself to reverie.