In general, Italian production of the second half of the century is of relatively slight interest; moreover, it often seriously upsets the balance of earlier urban entities by its heavy scale. The great exception, and the one ranking Italian work of the period, is generally recognized to be the Galleria Vittorio Emmanuele II in Milan. In Genoa, behind the theatre, the Galleria Mazzini of 1871 also exceeds in length, in height, and in elaboration all the galleries and passages built in various European cities in the first half of the nineteenth century, yet it is not essentially very different from them in its scale or its detailing. The vast cruciform Galleria in Milan, however, extending from the Piazza del Duomo to the Piazza della Scala, with a great octagonal space at the crossing, is in concept and in its actual dimensions more a work of urbanism than of architecture (Plate 75B). Built with English capital by an English firm, the City of Milan Improvement Company Ltd, and even, presumably, with some English professional advice—M. D. Wyatt was a member of the English board—this tremendous project more than rivals the greatest Victorian railway stations of London in the height, if not the span, of its metal-and-glass roof. But the actual designing architect was Italian, Giuseppe Mengoni (1829-77), and the Galleria de Cristoforis provided him with at least a modest local prototype. Erected in 1865-77 and now completely restored to its pristine richness and elegance, the Galleria scheme involved the enlargement of the Piazza del Duomo and the lining of two of its sides with related façades—executed only partly from Mengoni’s designs—as also the regularization of the Piazza della Scala. Alessi’s sixteenth-century Palazzo Marino, itself of almost Second Empire lushness, was enlarged to serve as the offices of the municipality and provided with a new façade in Alessi’s extreme Mannerist style across one side of the square facing La Scala. This was carried out in 1888-90 by Luca Beltrami (1854-1933), who had studied in Paris at the École des Beaux-Arts, to serve as municipal offices. Like all the other most prominent buildings of this period, Mengoni’s Galleria makes its impression by its size, its elaboration of detail, and above all its unqualified assurance. From the triumphal-arch portal, rising as high as the nave of the medieval Duomo, to the gilded arabesques of the pilasters, all is obvious, expensive, and rather parvenu; yet the setting—at once so comfortable and so magnificent—that it provides for urban life, centre as it has always remained of so much Milanese activity, has not been equalled since.[203] The Galleria Umberto I in Naples is a late and rather inferior imitation whose ornate entrance most ungenerously overpowers the San Carlo Theatre across the street. This was built by Emmanuele Rocco in 1887-90.