Galleria Umberto I

This guide to Galleria Umberto I in Naples traces the arcade from its 1887 construction, designed by Emanuele Rocco with ornament by Antonio Curri, through its early years as bourgeois Naples's grand salon above the underground cabaret where the Lumiere brothers screened some of Italy's first films. It follows the arcade into 1943, when Allied bombs shattered the glass dome and left it to shoeshine boys the Neapolitans called sciuscia, who set up business among the rubble for the soldiers filling the gallery. Vittorio De Sica put their world on screen, and the film that resulted won an Oscar.