The Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II is a covered double arcade (two arcades intersecting in an octagon) sited on the northern side of the Piazza del Duomo in Milan, connecting to the Piazza della Scala. Named after Vittorio Emanuele II, the first king of united Italy, it was originally designed in 1861 and built by Giuseppe Mengoni between 1865 and 1877.
The street is covered over by an arching glass and steel roof, a popular design for nineteenth-century shopping malls (e.g., the Passazh in St Petersburg, opened in 1848). The central point is topped with a glass dome. The Milanese Galleria was larger in scale than its predecessors and was an important step in the evolution of the modern shopping mall. It has inspired the use of the term Galleria for many other shopping arcades and malls.
The iconography of the inlaid mosaic concourse and the painted pendentives of the 164-foot octagonal dome, raised over the crossing, represents the union of church and state which first came into being with the triumphant nationalist revolution of 1848.
More than 120 years after its inauguration, the four-story arcade includes elegant shops selling most things from haute couture to books, as well as restaurants, cafés and bars.
Information sources:- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galleria_Vittorio_Emanuele 
http://www.greatbuildings.com/buildings/Galleria_Vittorio_Emanuel.html
E & OE. All images © copyright 2007 Simon P Smiler.
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