Palermo Walking Tour and Street Food

Quattro Canti, or Vigliena square, is the name of the octagonal square in the intersection between the two most important streets in Palermo: via Maqueda and Cassaro (corso Vittorio Emanuele). Ancients sources refers about it as “Octagon” or “Sun’s Theatre”, because during the daylight almost one of the façades is lighten by the sun. The “Four Corners” were realized from 1609 until 1620. The shape of the square is an octagon and it’s placed in the middle of the ancient city as a perfect point of connection between the four most important districts of that period which are: Kalsa, La Loggia, Capo e Albergheria. The four façades of the buildings have four different levels. In the lowest one it is possible to see the fountains as the symbols of the four old Palermo’s main rivers: Oreto, Kemonia, Pannaria, Papireto; in the next level are shown the allegories of the four seasons represented by Eolo, Venus, Cerere and Bacchus; the middle part is decorated by the statues of Carlo V, Filippo II, Filippo III, Filippo IV; and in the last order there are the illustration of the four saints of Palermo before the arrival of Saint Rosalia (1624): Agata, Ninfa, Oliva e Cristina.