Description
Palazzo dei Leoni, or Palazzo della Provincia, is the seat of the Metropolitan City of Messina, between Corso Cavour and Piazza Antonello: one of the most interesting public buildings of the rebuilding, with its portico on the square.
The style is eclectic, neoclassical with Renaissance touches in the Serlian windows. The plinths and steps are faced with Trapani stone, and the wrought-iron gates are by the Messina firm La Spada. Inside is the Hall of Mirrors (Salone degli Specchi), next to the vast council chamber.
It was designed by Alessandro Giunta, chief engineer of the provincial technical office, and opened in 1918, on the site that before the 1908 earthquake was occupied by the 16th-century Casa Professa of the Jesuits.
Piazza Antonello, first laid out as Piazza Circolare, was meant to bring together the city's institutions: today the palace shares it with the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele III, one side of the City Hall and the former Post Office building.
The style is eclectic, neoclassical with Renaissance touches in the Serlian windows. The plinths and steps are faced with Trapani stone, and the wrought-iron gates are by the Messina firm La Spada. Inside is the Hall of Mirrors (Salone degli Specchi), next to the vast council chamber.
It was designed by Alessandro Giunta, chief engineer of the provincial technical office, and opened in 1918, on the site that before the 1908 earthquake was occupied by the 16th-century Casa Professa of the Jesuits.
Piazza Antonello, first laid out as Piazza Circolare, was meant to bring together the city's institutions: today the palace shares it with the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele III, one side of the City Hall and the former Post Office building.