Architectural Perspective in Two Seventeenth-Century Galleries in Genoa

Abstract

In the second half of the seventeenth century there was a transformation in interior decoration of palaces in Genoa, which was oriented towards an integration between architecture, painting, furniture, and stucco. This research studies the decorations of two Genoese seventeenth-century galleries, in Palazzo Balbi Senarega and Palazzo Rosso respectively, where the process of this evolution, analysed through perspective studies, can be observed. The tools adopted include nodal-photography techniques, which allow one to perceive real spaces and their decoration through interactive panoramic spherical photos. This technique also produces high-resolution planar photos that are used to apply the reverse-perspective construction method thanks to the presence of architectural elements in the pictorial representation. Transgressions in the geometry of linear perspective and in architectural models can be noted and different reconstructions can be hypothesised, which furthermore allow the construction of three-dimensional virtual models of the illusory spaces integrated into the real ones.