Via Santa Croce House

The house in Via Santa Croce n. 12 is a two-storey building, whose facade is decorated in monochrome grey in the Grisailles style of Saluzzo of the 16th century. Unfortunately not all the fresco is well preserved. Observing the portrayed scene, two registers can be noticed corresponding to the first and the second floors. On the first floor, the right fresco panel depicts a hunter riding a horse with beaters on foot who are attacking an ostrich of huge proportions. The knight is an adult male, with a thin face and a goatee and is dressed in the Spanish style. In his right hand he is holding a long pike with which he pierces the animal. Even the beater is sticking its pike in the ostrich’s neck. In the left fresco panel there is a warlord on horse, but this part of the fresco is faded due to a loss of colour which damaged the horse-like shape. On the second floor some hunting scenes with a falcon are portrayed. In the right fresco panel you can only see a hunter on his horse, facing left, as the painting is almost entirely damaged, while the left fresco panel shows a hunter on his horse, with a falcon on his fist, followed by a beater who is carrying an arquebus on his shoulder, both are heading towards a forest. The theme of the ostrich has a connection with some watercolours, preserved in codices in the National Library in Turin. It is difficult to establish whether the fresco in Via Santa Croce depends even partially on these drawings, but it is interesting to confirm that maybe frivolous themes were not unknown to the inhabitants of Cuneo at that time.