Galleria Umberto I, Naples

Galleria Umberto I is a grand public shopping gallery, built to bring commerce and sociability into a single civic interior. Emanuele Rocco designed it in the stile umbertino, and construction ran from 1887 to 1890. Look through the broad entrances to the spacious crossing beneath the glass canopy: the building is arranged as a high cross-shaped passage, crowned by a dome whose spire reaches about 57 metres.

Sixteen metal ribs brace that roof, giving the meeting point a clear geometric rhythm. Shops, cafés, and apartments were planned together here, joining public activity with private life. The gallery was created during Naples’ long risanamento, the rebuilding effort that followed the cholera epidemic of 1884 and continued until World War I.

Its name honours Umberto I, King of Italy during construction. On the pavement beneath the dome, mosaics display winds and zodiac signs; the present designs were made in 1952 after earlier ones suffered damage from heavy use and wartime destruction. The American writer John Horne Burns later used this gallery as the setting for his 1947 novel The Gallery.