Prince of Naples Gallery
Lopsided glass-roofed arcade with geometric tile floors, linking an art academy to a great museum.
The Prince of Naples Gallery in Naples was meant to be architect Enrico Alvino's four-wing glass-roofed arcade to rival the great shopping galleries of Milan and Paris, built between 1873 and 1883. The guide follows why the fourth wing was never built, blocked by the church of Santa Maria di Costantinopoli, and how Nicola Breglia and Giovanni De Novellis finished the design as a lopsided cross instead. It traces how the arcade's two remaining entrances, facing the old Academy of Fine Arts and the National Archaeological Museum, drew art students rather than shoppers. Look down at the yellow and black geometric tile floor, worn smooth by generations crossing between studio and museum.
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