Palazzo Manganelli, Catania

The busy piazza serves mainly as a parking lot; at the north is a civic art gallery, housed in the former church of San Michele Minore.

Like nearly all construction in Catania, it was mostly destroyed by the 1693 earthquake although the palace had been built against the medieval walls of the town, that withstood the tremor and can still be seen along via Santa Teresa.

Antonio Paternò, 6th Baron of Manganelli, commissioned the construction of a new palace from Alonzo Di Benedetto and Felice Palazzotto.

In 1837, a severe cholera outbreak in Catania caused a short rebellion by the populace, who protested in front of this palace, home of the then Catanian governor, the prince of Manganelli.

In the 1870s, the piano nobile was decorated with frescoes by Giuseppe Sciuti and Ernesto Bellandi, working on commission from Princess Angela Paternò di Manganelli Torresi.