Stories

Porta Felice has no traditional arch across the top, and there’s a favourite Palermo story about why. In the 18th century, people jokingly called the gate i corna a luna — “horns under the moon.” Nearby was the seafront, where aristocrats loved taking evening walks, including romantic ones. So people joked that the top had deliberately been left open so that cheated husbands could enter the city without catching their horns on the arch.