Page 124 - The Rough Guide of Sicily

The modern city

Via Maqueda assumes an increasingly modern aspect as it progresses north from
Quattro Canti. Barring the bustle of activity around Via Candelai – a busy shopping
street by day, a hubbub of cafés at night – the interesting medieval alleys are gradually

replaced by the wider and more nondescript streets around Piazza Verdi.

Beyond the Teatro Massimo theatre Via Maqueda becomes Via Ruggero Séttimo,
which cuts through gridded shopping streets on its way to the huge double square that
characterizes modern Palermo. Known as Piazza Politeama, it’s made up of Piazza
Castelnuovo to the west and Piazza Ruggero Séttimo to the east. Dominating the whole
lot is Palermo’s other massive theatre, the late nineteenth-century Politeama

Garibaldi, built in overblown Pompeiian style and topped by a bronze chariot pulled
by four horses. From here, broad boulevards shoot up to the shady nineteenth-century
gardens of the Giardino Inglese.

THE UCCIARDONE – NO NEED TO ESCAPE

A couple of blocks east of the Giardino Inglese is Palermo’s notorious Ucciardone
prison, connected by an underground passageway to the maximum-security bunker
where the much-publicized maxi processi (maxi-trials) of Mafia suspects were held
in the 1980s. At the time, the gloomy Bourbon prison was dubbed “the best-informed

centre in Italy for gossip and intelligence about the operations of organized crime
throughout the world”, not least because it was home to a good percentage of the
biggest names in the Italian underworld. Mafia affairs were conducted here almost
undisturbed, by bosses whose food was brought in from Palermo’s best restaurants
and who collaborated with the warders to ensure that escapes didn’t happen –
something that might increase security arrangements and hamper their activities.

However, following the murders of Mafia investigators Falcone and Borsellino in
1992, many of the highest-risk inmates were transferred to more isolated prisons in
different parts of the country.

Teatro Massimo

Piazza Verdi • Tours every 30min Tues–Sun 9.30am–5pm; last tour at 4.30pm, 4pm if there’s a show starting at
5.30pm, and there are no tours during rehearsal times • €8 • 091 605 3267, teatromassimo.it
Said to be the largest theatre in Italy, built on a scale to rival Europe’s great opera

houses, the nineteenth-century Teatro Massimo was constructed by Giovanni Battista
Basile, whose Neoclassical design was possibly influenced by Charles Garnier’s
contemporary plans for the Paris Opéra. Tours with an English-speaking guide show
you the rich, gilded, marble Sala Pompeiana, where the nobility once gathered, and
the domed ceiling in the six-tiered auditorium, constructed in the shape of a flower