The Palazzo delle Poste is an notable building, called a palace, but built for and still housing postal offices. It stands on the west corner of Via Etnea, #288, where it intersects with the start of the

Giardino Bellini The Giardino Bellini (also known as Villa Bellini; English translation: "Bellini Garden") is the oldest urban park of Catania. It occupies 70.942 m². History Before the construction of a public garden, the area was occupied by the garden maze ...

. The postal building is a neo-

baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...

creation of the architect Francesco Fichera. Construction began in 1922 and were complete only in 1930. The three facades, along via Etnea, via Angelo Litrico, and via Sant'Euplio are similar. All contain a rusticated ground level set upon a base of dark lava stone. The ground floor is an row of arches, each with a keystone marked by a grotesque mask. The second floors have convex balconies framed by pilasters surmounted by a tympanum with a broken pediment. Behind the balconies are tall glass doors with delicate frames. The decoration throughout is often playful and imaginative. At the northeast corner, some of the decorations are cornucopias, but others appear to resemble complex starfish. The tympanum at this corner has a shell flanked by fish. The metal grate has a

liberty style Liberty style ( it, Stile Liberty) was the Italian variant of Art Nouveau, which flourished between about 1890 and 1914. It was also sometimes known as ''stile floreale'', ''arte nuova'', or ''stile moderno''. It took its name from Arthur Lasenby ...

design. The interior courtyard now obscured by further construction, was nearly devoid of such decoration and has a simplistic brick detail more common in Fascist architecture of the time.Poste Italiano
entry celebrating the 90th anniversary of the building. However, the lively facade distinctly avoids the severe sobriety of contemporary "rationalist" architecture of postal offices such as the Poste palace of Palermo and the Poste palace of Naples. The architect Fichera also designed the Garage Musumeci in Catania.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Poste Catania Buildings and structures completed in 1930 Palaces in Catania