Page 303 - The Rough Guide of Sicily

The Teatro Romano, built in the second century AD, is an intimate little theatre,
which preserves much of the Roman seating and underground passageway. A small
antiquarium here displays finds from the site. The smaller Odeon, adjacent, was used
for music and recitations.

Castello Ursino and the Museo Civico

Museo Civico Mon–Fri 9am–1pm & 2.30–7pm, Sat 9am–8pm • €6 • 095 345 830

Beyond the Pescheria, Via Plebiscito winds through a dilapidated though appealingly
neighbourly quarter to Piazza Federico di Svevia, dominated by the Castello Ursino,
once the proud fortress of Frederick II. Originally the castle stood on a rocky cliff

above the sea, but a 1669 eruption of Etna resulted in this entire area becoming
landlocked, and left just the keep standing. The castle still presents a formidable
appearance, and now houses the Museo Civico, part of whose ground floor is taken up
with temporary exhibitions, while permanent exhibits include retrieved mosaic
fragments, stone inscriptions, elegant painted Greek amphorae and terracotta

statuettes. Upstairs the Pinacoteca (art gallery) holds mainly religious art from the
seventeenth century.

Via Crociferi

The best place to appreciate the eighteenth-century rebuilding of Catania is along its
most handsome street, Via Crociferi, where the wealthy religious authorities and

private citizens competed with each other to construct dazzling houses, palaces and
churches. They were building using the very bones of the Roman and medieval city:
the arcaded Piazza Mazzini (straddling Via Garibaldi) was constructed from 32
columns that originally formed part of a Roman basilica.

Via Crociferi begins to the north of Piazza San Francesco, running under an imposing
Baroque arch that announces the start of a series of arresting religious and secular

buildings, little-changed since the eighteenth century. Amble up the narrow street and
you can peer into the courtyards of the palazzi (one holds a plantation of banana trees)
and poke around the churches. About halfway up on the right, the finest of these, San
Giuliano (usually only open for services), has a facade by Vaccarini and an echoing

elliptical interior.

Museo Belliniano

Piazza San Francesco d’Assisi 3 • Mon–Sat 9am–1pm • Free • 095 715 0535
At the bottom of Via Crociferi, opposite San Francesco church, the house where the

composer Vincenzo Bellini was born in 1801 is now open as the Museo Belliniano,
displaying photographs, original scores, his death mask and other memorabilia. Born
into a musical family, Bellini supposedly composed his first work at the age of 6, and