The Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II is a double arcade in the center of Milan , Italy . The structure is formed by two glass-vaulted arcades intersecting in an octagon covering the street connecting Piazza del Duomo to Piazza della Scala. The Galleria is named after Vittorio Emanuele II , the first king of the Kingdom of Italy . It was originally designed in 1861 and built by Giuseppe Mengoni between 1865 and 1877. The street is covered by an arching glass and cast iron roof, a popular design for nineteenth-century arcades, such as the Burlington Arcade in London , which was the prototype for larger glazed shopping arcades , beginning with the Saint-Hubert Gallery in Brussels (opened in 1847), the Passazh in St Petersburg (opened in 1848), the Galleria Umberto...