Luca Giordano (Naples, 1634–1705)
Perseus Confronting Phineus
Clorinda Rescuing Olindo and Sofronia

oil on canvas,c. 1680
The Throne Room

These two grandiose paintings, formerly part of the Durazzo collection, drew cultured travellers and artists to the great Genoese palace for decades. Painted around 1680, they show the influence of Paolo Veronese, whose work Giordano had admired during a stay in Venice. They were set into the walls of what was then called the Giordano Room, richly adorned with stuccowork, during the 18th century. When this became the Savoy Throne Room, they were instead placed in the two sumptuous wooden frames that still hold them today. The first work, an imposing composition with a wealth of scenic inventions and theatrical effects, depicts the combat between Perseus and Phineus, a well-known episode in classical mythology. The second instead presents the episode that opens the second canto of Gerusalemme liberata by Tasso, a 16th-century poet ranked as one of greatest in the whole of Italian literature.