Page 300 - The Rough Guide of Sicily

STAYING SAFE IN CATANIA

Of all Sicilian cities, Catania has the worst reputation for petty crime. Hoteliers
and locals often warn tourists to be on their guard against pickpockets and, without
being too alarmist, it doesn’t do any harm to follow their advice. If you’re happy
with security at your hotel, leave your passport and valuables there before going out.
Be careful on your own at night, and don’t flash your cash, phones or cameras in run-
down areas or in the middle of the teeming markets.

Brief history

Some of the island’s first Greek colonists, probably Chalcidinians from Naxos,
settled the site as early as 729 BC, becoming so influential that their laws were
eventually adopted by all the Ionian colonies of Magna Graecia. Later, the city was
among the first to fall to the Romans, under whom it prospered greatly. Unusually for
Sicily, Catania’s surviving ancient relics are all Roman (albeit lava-encrusted, after

successive historic eruptions). In the early Christian period Catania witnessed the
martyrdom of Agatha, who, having rejected the improper advances of the praetor,
Quintianus, was put to death in 252. She was later canonized (becoming the patron
saint of Catania), and it was her miraculous intervention that reputedly saved the city
from complete volcanic destruction in the seventeenth century. Even with the saint’s

protection, Catania has had its fair share of disasters: Etna erupted in 1669, engulfing
the city in lava, while the great earthquake of 1693 devastated the whole of
southeastern Sicily. But making full use of the lava as building material, the
eighteenth-century architect Giovanni Battista Vaccarini gave central Catania a lofty,
noble air that endures today.

Piazza del Duomo

Piazza del Duomo is one of Sicily’s most elegant Baroque piazzas, rebuilt completely