User:Rybec/Quattro Canti
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![Thumb image](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/72/Piazza_Quattro_Canti_%286228008412%29.jpg/640px-Piazza_Quattro_Canti_%286228008412%29.jpg)
Quattro Canti is an octagonal plaza in the Baroque style. It is at the crossing of the two principal streets, the Via Maqueda and the Corso Vittorio Emanuele, in Palermo, Sicily, southern Italy.
Its official name is the Piazza Vigliena, in honor of Marquis Don Juan Fernandez Pacheco de Villena y Ascalon (Juan Fernández Pacheco, duque de Escalona), the Viceroy who in 1608 commissioned its construction by Giulio Lasso.[1]
In ancient times, it was called the Octagon of the Sun, or Theatre of the Sun, because in daytime at least one of its architectural scenes was lit.[2]
The Quattro Canti, or Vigliena square, [1] , is the name of an octagonal square at the intersection of two main roads of Palermo : the Via Maqueda and Cassaro , Corso Vittorio Emanuele today (ancient Phoenician origin, connecting the acropolis and the Palace of the Normans to the sea), about half of their length.
The piazza is octagonal, four sides being the streets; the remaining four sides are Baroque buildings, the near-identical facades of which contain fountains with statues of the four seasons, the four Spanish kings of Sicily, and of the patronesses of Palermo, (Cristina, Ninfa, Olivia, and Agata). The facades onto the interchange are curved, and rise to four floors; the fountains rise to the height of the second floor, the third and fourth floors contain the statues in niches. At the time the piazza was built, it was one of the first major examples of town planning in Europe.