#noveparole. 6 - Contemplation

They call it a chapel, but once you are inside, looking up at the spaces and volumes, the walls and pillars, despite its small size, it gives you the idea of a basilica, rather like the Basilica of Superga. They resemble each other: two splendid examples of baroque architecture, and in fact were designed by the same hand, of the architect Filippo Juvarra of Messina. 

The Superga Basilica, which stands on a hill overlooking Turin, was started in 1717 and completed in 1731. Work on the smaller, more private chapel, almost hidden away inside the Palace, began a year earlier in 1716, and was completed in 1729. 

It is known as the Chapel of St Hubert, patron saint of hunters, as the Reggia was originally designed to be a hunting lodge. Ambitions grew, and just as our French cousins across the Alps built Versailles, the Savoy family built La Venaria. This is why, after becoming king, Victor Amadeus II, summoned Filippo Juvarra to Turin. He became the first architect of the Savoy reign, and his first official task was to build the Chapel of St Hubert and the Basilica of Superga. 

The Superga Basilica speaks of triumph and ambition, this Chapel is more a place of contemplation: not outside the self, but inside the self, assisted by the space as it was designed, and by the light falling gently from above.

It is a place of spiritual respite along the path. In the words of St Augustine: “Men contemplate the tops of the mountains, the wide stretches of sea, the broad streams, the vastness of the ocean and the course of the stars, yet they neglect themselves”. And so the Chapel inside the Royal Venaria offers an auspicious pause.