Description
Palazzo Valle is a Baroque palazzo at number 122 Via Vittorio Emanuele II, in Catania's old town: one of the most elegant works of Giovanni Battista Vaccarini, the architect of the Catania reborn after the 1693 earthquake.
The highlight is the entrance portal, topped by a rich pediment that holds up the large corbel of the central balcony. Around it, the façade is framed by low pilasters and a restrained cornice, livened up by curving balconies.
On the ground floor were the shops with their mezzanines, and above them the owners' piano nobile, reached from the entrance hall by two staircases. The inner courtyard, curiously, was never fully finished. The architect Francesco Fichera praised its "charm of austere grandeur", born of the simplicity of the massive building.
The highlight is the entrance portal, topped by a rich pediment that holds up the large corbel of the central balcony. Around it, the façade is framed by low pilasters and a restrained cornice, livened up by curving balconies.
On the ground floor were the shops with their mezzanines, and above them the owners' piano nobile, reached from the entrance hall by two staircases. The inner courtyard, curiously, was never fully finished. The architect Francesco Fichera praised its "charm of austere grandeur", born of the simplicity of the massive building.