Quattro Canti

Quattro Canti, officially known as Piazza Vigliena, is a Baroque square in Palermo, region of Sicily, Italy. The site is the intersection of two major streets in Palermo, the Via Maqueda and the Corso Vittorio Emanuele. On the southwest corner stands the church of . A few steps away along the flank of this church, behind the Southeast corner building, along Via Maqueda is the Piazza and Fontana Pretoria, sandwiched between this church and Santa Caterina. A few more steps reaches San Cataldo and the church of La Martorana.

History[]

This small scale urban plan was laid out on the orders of the Spanish Viceroys between 1608-1620^[1] by Giulio Lasso and Mariano Smiriglio.

The piazza layout is octagonal, four sides comprise the streets, while the remaining four sides are nearly symmetric, concave Baroque facades, each with four stories with three full size statues in their centers. The street level up to second story feature four fountains, each dedicated to one the four seasons. The third stories have statues in niches of four Spanish rulers of Sicily; above them in roofline are their respective coat of arms. The fourth and top stories of the buildings have statues of four female patron saints of Palermo: Christina, Ninfa, Olivia and Agata).

The fountains were completed in 1630: Spring and Summer by Gregorio Tedeschi, while Autumn and Winter were sculpted by Nunzio La Mattina. The Spanish kings were sculpted between 1661 and 1663 by Carlo Aprile. At the time the piazza was built, it was an early examples of town planning in Europe.

Corner location	south-west	north-west	north-east	south-east
photo
district	Albergheria	Seralcadio/Capo	La Loggia	Kalsa

season represented by fountain	spring	summer	autumn	winter
king of Spain	Charles V	Philip II	Philip IV	Philip III
patron Saint	Christina of Bolsena	Santa Ninfa	Oliva di Palermo	Sant'Agata