Galleria Umberto I

Galleria Umberto I is a public shopping gallery in Naples, southern Italy. It is located directly across from the San Carlo opera house. It was built between 1887 and 1890, and was the cornerstone in the decades-long rebuilding of Naples—called the risanamento —that lasted until World War I. It was designed in the Stile Umbertino by Emanuele Rocco, with a dome 57m high at tip of spire, who employed modern architectural elements reminiscent of the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II in Milan. The Galleria was named after Umberto I, King of Italy at the time of construction. It was meant to combine businesses, shops, cafés and social life—public space—with private space in the apartments on the third floor. The Galleria is a high and spacious cross-shaped structure, surmounted by a glass dome braced by 16 metal ribs. Of the four iron and glass-vaulted wings, one fronts on via Toledo (via Roma), still the main downtown thoroughfare, and another opens onto the San Carlo Theatre.