Politeama Garibaldi

A bronze quadriga crowns the entrance — Apollo and Euterpe in triumph, modelled by Mario Rutelli — above the neoclassical arch that Giuseppe Damiani Almeyda designed for what began in 1867 as an open amphitheatre for popular entertainment. The plan changed the following year into a theatre proper; the roof went on in 1877, and the last work was finished only in 1891, in time for the National Exhibition and a state opening before Umberto I and Queen Margherita. The building had in fact been inaugurated long before that, on 7 June 1874, still unfinished, with an opera by Bellini. Palermo's second house after the Teatro Massimo, it has been home to the Orchestra Sinfonica Siciliana since 2001, and its tiers now carry symphonic seasons where spectacle and circus once played.