Porta Felice (Palermo)
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The Porta Felice is a historical gate of the city of Palermo .
The Spanish viceroy Marcantonio Colonna named it after his wife Felice Orsini.
The Porta Felice forms the end of the Cassaro on the sea side of Palermo and is the counterpart of the Porta Nuova at the end of the Cassaro on the land side. After this was extended to the sea in 1581, Viceroy Marcantonio Colonna commissioned the architect Mariano Smiriglio to plan the city gate in 1582 . When the Colonna left Palermo in 1584, construction work was stopped and only resumed in 1602. The sculptural work was completed in 1637, the two fountains at the foot of the towers not until 1642.
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The baroque gate was built on two split towers, probably so that the carriage with the statue of Saint Rosalia could pass the entrance to the city during the annual procession . The architect Mariano Smiriglio initially designed the two-part city gate, while the architect of the Senate, Pietro Novelli , later furnished the building with plenty of baroque sculptural works on the outside . The two buildings are decorated with statues of Santa Cristina and Santa Ninfa . On the first level there is a female statue between two columns in a niche and above on the wreath between two volutes you can see two eagles, the heraldic animal of the city of Palermo, which are provided with the coats of arms of Spanish kings. Above you can find coats of arms of citizens and vice regents of the city.
During the Second World War in 1943, bombing raids destroyed the northern half with the sculpture of Santa Ninfa. In the middle of the 20th century it was restored true to the original.
literature
- Giuseppe Bellafiore: Palermo. Guida della città e dei dintorni . Palermo 1995, pp. 67-68.
Web links
- Porta Felice on regionalgeographic.it ( Memento from March 12, 2012 in the Internet Archive )