Hidden Palermo: Secrets & Curiosities of the Old Town

The Four Corners are not a square, they are an intersection, the point where Via Macheda cuts across the Cassaro dividing Palermo into four historical districts. The corner buildings were constructed between 1608 and 1620 according to a design by Giulio Lasso, with decorations completed in 1663. Each façade has three levels, the fountains of the seasons on the first, the Spanish kings on the second, the patron saints of the four neighborhoods on the third. It is the only example in the world of an octagonal Baroque square created from a street intersection. Each level tells a different hierarchy of power, natural, royal, divine.

The great fountain at the center of this square was not designed for Palermo. It was commissioned by sculptor Francesco Camigliani in 1554 for the Florentine villa of the Viceroy of Naples, Don Pedro Alvarez de Toledo. When the viceroy's son found himself deeply in debt, he put it up for sale. The senate of Palermo purchased it in 1573 and had it dismantled into 644 pieces, transported by sea, and reassembled here. Palermitans immediately called it the Fountain of Shame because of the numerous nude statues. The name was a scandal. It has remained so forever.

The church of San Cataldo was built around 1154 by the will of Maio of Bari, chancellor of the Norman kingdom. It is one of the purest examples of Arab-Norman architecture. Three red domes, square floor plan, no decorated interior. It remained a church for a short time. After the death of Maio of Bari, it was ceded to the Knights of Malta and used as a post office in the 1700s. Today it is deconsecrated. The building has never been structurally modified since the Norman era. What you see is exactly how it was built in 1154.

The name Vucciria derives from the French word boucherie, which means butcher shop. In the Middle Ages this was the district of the slaughterhouse and meat sales, frequented by Genoese, Pisan, and Venetian merchants, thanks to its proximity to the port. Over time Vucciria became synonymous with confusion in the Palermitan dialect. In 1783 the viceroy Caracciolo had the central square reorganized with porticoes and a fountain with four lions. In 1974 painter Renato Guttuso immortalized this market in one of the most famous paintings of twentieth-century Italian art. Today the Vucciria is the capital of Palermo's nightlife scene.