The Palazzo Tezzano is a historic building in Piazza Stesicoro, which is in the center of Catania

Catania

Catania is an Italian city on the east coast of Sicily facing the Ionian Sea, between Messina and Syracuse. It is the capital of the homonymous province, and with 298,957 inhabitants it is the second-largest city in Sicily and the tenth in Italy.Catania is known to have a seismic history and...

, Sicily

Sicily

Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...

, southern Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

.

History

The construction of Palazzo Tezzano started in 1709 on land owned by the count and physician Nicholas Tezzano. It was later donated to the city of Catania. It was transformed into a hospital by Alonzo Di Benedetto between 1720 and 1727.

In 1837, partly because of the hospital's economic difficulties, part of the building was leased by the House of Bourbon

House of Bourbon

The House of Bourbon is a European royal house, a branch of the Capetian dynasty . Bourbon kings first ruled Navarre and France in the 16th century. By the 18th century, members of the Bourbon dynasty also held thrones in Spain, Naples, Sicily, and Parma...

 to house its archives. Some years later, around 1844, the palace were also added some of the Attorney

Lawyer

A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...

 General's office and local seats of the criminal chancellery. In those years, plans were made for the relocation and transformation of the entire hospital and the building of a general court. Those projects were stranded following the Revolution of 1848. The transfer of the hospital took some time between 1878 and 1880. It was moved to premises adjacent to the Benedictine Monastery of St. Nicholas, and changed its name to "Vittorio Emanuele II Hospital".

After the transfer of the hospital, Palazzo Tezzano remained the seat of the Court until the new headquarters building in Giovanni Verga Square completed and inaugurated in 1953.

Architecture

The building has an imposing appearance, a square shape with an inner courtyard that surrounds the building, forming a "U" facing north. The entrance from the Piazza Stesicoro is across a wide front door, at the center of the main façade, dominated by a monumental balcony

Balcony

Balcony , a platform projecting from the wall of a building, supported by columns or console brackets, and enclosed with a balustrade.-Types:The traditional Maltese balcony is a wooden closed balcony projecting from a...

 above which is a clock tower

Clock tower

A clock tower is a tower specifically built with one or more clock faces. Clock towers can be either freestanding or part of a church or municipal building such as a town hall. Some clock towers are not true clock towers having had their clock faces added to an already existing building...

. The façade is symmetrical and is divided in height from false stone columns that contrast with the basalt

Basalt

Basalt is a common extrusive volcanic rock. It is usually grey to black and fine-grained due to rapid cooling of lava at the surface of a planet. It may be porphyritic containing larger crystals in a fine matrix, or vesicular, or frothy scoria. Unweathered basalt is black or grey...

plaster creating a division into five architectural units per side.