Porta Garibaldi (Garibaldi’s gateway)

At the end of Via Garibaldi there’s a triumphal arch, it was erected in 1768, mistakenly called “Gateway of Garibaldi” or “King Ferdinand’s one” (because it was built to celebrate the wedding between Prince Ferdinand IV and Maria Carolina of Austria) but it’s better known to people of Catania as “porta ‘o Furtinu”.

The construction project was designed and supervised by Stefano Ittar, who, originally, decided to embed the door to the adjacent buildings, then they pulled down and he built two semi-cylindrical towers on the square. Piazza Palestro and Piazza Crocifisso Majorana had two diffent functions, the first was like a hall, the second was a entrance passage to the city. This difference isn’t observable due to the subsequent and numerous changes and now remains only the triumphal arch without eighteenth-century decors.