Palazzo Solaro del Borgo (Isnardi di Caraglio)

Born between 1644 and 1656 as the residence of the marquis of Lorraine Harvard de Senantes, the building passed in 1693 to the Isnardi of Caraglio, that later commissioned the renewal to the architect Benedetto Alfieri.

To him we owe the sleeve towards via Lagrange, the fronts of the court, the hall, the staircase. Director of the interior décor is Alfieri himself, to whom is associated, after his death in 1767, Filippo Castelli.

In the apartments, in which took place in 1771 the celebrations for the marriage between Maria Giuseppina of Savoy and the future Luigi XVIII, offered by the ambassador of France that had his residence there, distinguish themselves: the great staircase (whose vault painted by Bernardino Galliari in 1758 was destroyed in 1942) decorated by stuccoes by Giovanni Battista Bernero, the rooms towards the court with over-doors by Michele and Vittorio Amedeo Rapous, the library, the gallery and the precious octagonal living room.

This last one represents a peak in the Rococo taste in Europe: the surfaces of the walls resolved in mirrors, on which pick rocaille carvings in golden wood, places themselves near the best French realisations of that time.

In 1841, owing to the new destination of the palace, since 1838 seat of the Philharmonic Academy and since 1947 of the Whist Society (founded in 1841 by the Earl of Cavour), the architect Giuseppe Talucchi realised, with full adherence to the neo-classic canons, the Odeon for the concerts, substituting a terrace realised the previous century by Benedetto Alfieri.

Nowadays the palace cannot be visited.