The hanging garden was the last part of the project attributed to Carlo Fontana to be completed during the second decade of the 18th century.
The current layout of this space overlooking the sea dates back to 1965-1966, when the 18th-century rissêu – for which a precise date is documented: 23 July 1739 – was installed here, coming from the courtyard of the demolished monastery of the Turchine nuns of the Holy Incarnation on the eastern slopes of Castelletto.
It was master craftsman Armando Porta who, with skill and passion, rebuilt it here, stone by stone, pebble by pebble, as stated in the perfectly intact and preserved inscription: “MOSAICO PROVENIENTE DAL DISTRUTTO / CONVENTO DELLE TURCHINE / QUIVI RICOSTRUITO 1965/1966 DA A PORTA”.
The example at the Royal Palace can rightly be counted among the masterpieces of its kind: small black and white pebbles and a few coloured details are skilfully interwoven on a dark background, creating wonderful textures with the flattened and varied shapes of the stones, probably collected at the mouths of the streams in the Genoa area, while the white design enhances the “art of interweaving” that is the essence of rissêu.
The figures depicted alternate between everyday scenes – such as the miller, fishing, the shepherd and scenes of domestic animals – and archetypal and mythological figures such as the hippocampus, the phoenix symbolising the sun, and the centaur, its lunar counterpart.
THE RESTORATION
The extraordinary flooring was perfectly restored by Gabriele Gelatti between April and July 2018, 70 days of intense work over four months that restored full legibility to one of the most refined mosaics in the entire region.
The meticulous restoration work repaired cracks and damage, reconstructed some details of the design that had been almost completely compromised by deterioration, and replaced hundreds of lost pebbles. At the same time, the areas most exposed to deterioration were mapped in order to facilitate future conservation work.
