Exploring Catania on foot through its palaces, churches and fish market, with Bellini along the way, pasta alla Norma at dinner and rather too many reasons to miss my train.
When Venus and Mars make love, Vulcan rages in the depths of Etna, spewing his pain into the sky. Fire rains down on Catania, but Liotru, the mighty black elephant, takes the god’s fury upon himself, his magic saving the city again and again. And so Catania stands, dark and defiant, and I walk its streets to soak up a little of that ancient power.
Catania needed a second look. At first, I saw a large city under a grey-black veil, with little of the immediate charm that makes some Italian towns so obligingly attractive. Then I began noticing the pale stone around the windows, the curves of a church façade, the confidence of a balcony projecting over the pavement. The darkness acquired texture, and somewhere between one square and the next, I started wishing I had allowed myself more time.
Much of that distinctive colour comes from Etna. Lava stone appears in buildings, steps and paving, while volcanic material mixed into plaster gives other surfaces their smoky tone. Against it, white limestone and marble become unusually vivid. Catania’s dark façades can look austere from a distance, but up close they reveal surprisingly elegant details, especially if you let your gaze wander above the shopfronts.
Architecture was what I had mainly come to see, and there was plenty to occupy me. But the city also had Bellini, whose name kept turning up on monuments and eventually on my dinner plate, and a fish market capable of holding the attention of someone who does not even like eating fish. I felt comfortable here. There was an ease to the everyday life around me that the grandest façade could only partly explain.
I explored Catania over two mornings, between trips elsewhere in Sicily. I saw many of the buildings described below only from the outside: some were closed, while others will have to wait for another visit. If you want to follow the same route and explore the interiors too, allow at least a full day.
Before the walk: how Catania became Catania
Sicily's second-largest city began as the Greek colony of Katane in the eighth century BC, on a site already associated with the island's Sicel population. The name is often connected with the rough character of the surrounding ground, which seems appropriate for a city built beside Etna. Its coastal position encouraged trade, but prosperity also attracted neighbours with ambitions of their own.
In 476 BC, Hieron I of Syracuse expelled the inhabitants and installed a new population, even renaming the city Aitna. The original inhabitants later returned, but independence remained precarious: Catania was drawn into the struggles involving Syracuse, Athens and Carthage before coming under Roman rule in 263 BC, during the First Punic War. Under Rome it developed into an important urban centre; Cicero's references to the city belong to that long period of prosperity. The remains encountered on this walk give some idea of its scale.
After the Roman period came the upheavals of Vandal and Ostrogothic power, Byzantine rule, Arab conquest and, in the eleventh century, the Normans. Later, the conflict between the Angevins and the Aragonese brought Catania into the dynastic struggles of medieval Sicily. It became an important royal residence under the Aragonese kings, before Sicily's incorporation into the Crown of Aragon in the early fifteenth century drew it more firmly into the political world of the Iberian monarchies.
Two seventeenth-century disasters explain much of the city visible today. In 1669, Etna's lava reached Catania and flowed into the sea; in 1693, a devastating earthquake struck southeastern Sicily and destroyed much of the city. The rebuilding produced the broad streets, theatrical squares and Baroque churches through which I would be walking. That repeated date on the history of a church or palace is a reminder of how thoroughly the earthquake divided Catania's story into before and after.
Via Etnea and Villa Bellini
My own part in that story began on New Year's Day, considerably earlier than a holiday morning normally requires. My Marriott loyalty — a habit regular readers will already know well — had put me not in the centre but a few kilometres up the coast, at the Four Points by Sheraton. Getting into town, then, meant the hotel's minibus rather than a walk. After a quick breakfast, I was ready for it at 8.30. Public transport offered limited practical alternatives that morning, while the shuttle was direct, reliable and, at the time, priced much like an ordinary city bus. There seemed little reason to make the journey more complicated.
By about nine I was on Via Etnea, the long street that provides the simplest introduction to central Catania. It runs north from Piazza del Duomo towards the slopes of the city and the direction of Etna, stretching roughly three kilometres to the area of Parco Gioeni. Much of its central section is pedestrianised, with shops and commercial premises occupying the ground floors of buildings whose upper storeys often deserve rather more attention. The street took shape during the rebuilding after 1693 and gradually extended northwards.
The minibus left me at Largo del Rinazzo, near the statue of Giuseppe Garibaldi and the entrance to Villa Bellini. Despite its name, the villa is a public garden, laid out on a site that once belonged to Ignazio Paternò Castello, Prince of Biscari. His eighteenth-century grounds had a labyrinth, statues and fountains: the sort of private garden in which getting lost was presumably part of the entertainment.
After the prince's death, the garden declined. The municipality acquired its original core in 1854, expanded it through further purchases and eventually inaugurated the unified public garden in 1883. The monumental entrance from Via Etnea was added in 1932. Inside, changes of level, stairways, small bridges and winding paths make the grounds more varied than they first appear, while the hilltop bandstand and the avenue of illustrious figures give the greenery a distinctly civic character.
I gave the park far less time than it deserved. It was easy to see how a quick look could become a much longer wander, and I already had a train to Syracuse booked into the morning. Villa Bellini became the first entry on a list of things to do properly on a return visit, a list that was about to grow with embarrassing speed.
Piazza Stesicoro: Bellini above, Rome below
Walking south along Via Etnea brought me to Piazza Stesicoro, only a few hundred metres away. Its name commemorates Stesichorus, the ancient Greek lyric poet traditionally associated with Catania, where he is said to have spent the final part of his life. His reputation rests on bringing the great stories of myth and heroic poetry into choral song. Tradition also places his tomb in this area, although the square's most conspicuous tribute to an artist belongs to a much more recent resident.
On the eastern side, Vincenzo Bellini sits high above four of his operas. Giulio Monteverde's monument, unveiled in 1882, rises about fifteen metres, its white marble making the composer conspicuous even among Catania's substantial buildings. Around the base, allegorical figures represent Norma, I puritani, La sonnambula and Il pirata. It is a useful monument for an opera enthusiast: the programme is already included.
Bellini was only thirty-three when he died, having written ten operas and secured a place among the defining composers of nineteenth-century bel canto. The phrase means “beautiful singing”, but the beauty comes with considerable demands: long melodic lines, control, agility and expression all have to sound effortless. Norma, with its famous prayer “Casta diva”, remains a particularly unforgiving demonstration of how much work can be concealed beneath a floating melody. Catania's affection for its composer extends well beyond the theatre; I would renew my acquaintance with Norma in edible form that evening.
East of the monument, Corso Sicilia opens a much more modern view. The broad street was cut through part of the historic San Berillo district during the redevelopment of the 1950s, making room for banks, offices and a different idea of urban prestige. After the compact spaces and decorated façades of Via Etnea, that change in scale is noticeable. It also provides a reminder that Catania continued remaking itself long after the Baroque rebuilding was complete.
Across Via Etnea, on the western half of the square, the city suddenly drops into its Roman past. A section of the amphitheatre lies below the surrounding streets, a fragment of a structure large enough to accommodate around 15,000 seated spectators. Dating principally to the second century AD, it was the largest amphitheatre in Sicily, built with extensive use of dark volcanic stone alongside brick and lighter materials. The surviving opening is only a small part of what once occupied this area.
The arena itself measured roughly seventy by fifty metres. Its surroundings would once have been enriched with marble, columns, statues and reliefs, but centuries of dismantling and reuse dispersed much of that material into later buildings. Eventually, the expanding city covered most of the monument. Excavations, including those of the early twentieth century, exposed the section visible in the square, leaving an intriguing mismatch between the modest patch of ruins in front of you and the scale of the building you have to imagine.
Above the ruins stands San Biagio, also known as Sant'Agata alla Fornace. The alternative name connects the church with the tradition of the furnace in which Saint Agatha suffered during her martyrdom. Rebuilt after the earthquake, it has a restrained Neoclassical façade with paired columns and a triangular pediment. Its place in the devotion to Catania's patron saint gives it an importance that is not immediately obvious from a quick look at the exterior.
The buildings around the square also deserve a little attention, and their differences make them easier to remember than a list of names suggests. Towards the western side, Palazzo della Borsa belongs to the 1930s and the architecture of commerce. Designed by Vincenzo Patanè on the site of a former Capuchin complex, it later became associated with the Chamber of Commerce. Pale stone, a formal entrance and dark steps give it a solidity quite distinct from the more decorative palaces nearby.
Palazzo Tezzano, recognisable by its central balcony and clock, has had a particularly useful existence. Begun in 1709 at the expense of the physician and count Niccolò Tezzano, it was donated to the city for the San Marco hospital. Financial pressures eventually brought archives and judicial offices into the building, and after the hospital moved out, the courts remained until 1953. From 1915, the building also housed the Grande Birraria Svizzera, later the Gran Caffè Lorenti: a more sociable counterpart to the courtrooms. The university's archive documenting ancient Greek vase painting was another occupant. Pale pilasters divide the grey façade into a regular rhythm, giving several centuries of changing occupants a reassuringly orderly exterior.
Palazzo del Toscano expresses a more private kind of ambition. Its earlier eighteenth-century fabric was transformed in the nineteenth century, with Enrico Alvino giving the palace much of its present character around 1870. Its patron, Antonino Paternò del Toscano, had served at the Bourbon court before becoming mayor of Catania under the new Italian monarchy. The broad entrance, formal Renaissance references and grand staircase inside belonged to the world of an aristocratic city residence; later subdivision created separate apartments without entirely erasing the ceremonial spaces. Nearby, Palazzo Beneventano della Corte followed a related architectural language in the later nineteenth century. The palace survived the 1950s clearance of much of San Berillo, passing to Banco di Sicilia before later returning to private hands.
From the Minoriti to Piazza Università
Continuing south along Via Etnea, I reached Palazzo Minoriti and the adjoining church of San Michele Arcangelo ai Minoriti. The former religious complex took its eighteenth-century shape during Catania's rebuilding, with Francesco Battaglia involved in the architectural work. After the suppression of the religious house in 1866, the palace entered the administrative life of the city, housing provincial and prefectural functions. Offices, archives, cultural activities and exhibitions have since occupied spaces originally intended for a very different daily routine.
The church makes a bright interruption in the street's darker surfaces. Its pale façade rises in ordered levels, while the interior contains three aisles, a dome, devotional paintings and an organ dating from 1858. It would make a rewarding stop beyond the shopfronts, particularly for anyone interested in the art and instruments of these working churches.
A little farther on, Via Etnea crosses Via Antonino di Sangiuliano at the Quattro Canti. The four palaces curve back at their corners, opening the intersection into an almost octagonal space. It is an architectural gesture that makes a crossroads worth stopping at: the buildings cooperate to produce a small square without giving up their individual fronts.
There is political theatre here too. In 1862, Garibaldi addressed the crowd from a balcony with the rallying cry “O Roma o morte!” — “Rome or death!” — during his campaign to bring Rome into the new Italian state. I had met him in statue form at the start of the walk, and now he was back on a balcony. Between Garibaldi and Bellini, Catania was already providing a fairly substantial cast.
Piazza Università opens shortly afterwards. The university was founded in the fifteenth century, but its main palace belongs to the rebuilding that began after 1693: construction started in 1696, with work by several architects, including Vaccarini and the Battaglias. The building occupies an entire block around a courtyard and houses the rectorate, administrative offices and a historic library. Frescoes, ceremonial rooms and an Aragonese tapestry give the interior further layers of institutional memory.
Near the northern approach to the square stands the Basilica della Collegiata, one of the most satisfying façades along this stretch. Its eighteenth-century front bends in and out, with six columns below and a central window and statues above. Steps raise the entrance from the pavement, and the upper section provides a setting for the bell. The whole composition seems designed to make you pause halfway past it and return for a better look.
The church's history reaches behind the present building. Traditions connect the site with earlier pagan worship and a Byzantine church, while its later role as a royal chapel links it to the Aragonese court. Its present name refers to the college of canons established in the fifteenth century. After the earthquake, the church was rebuilt, and its interior acquired the frescoes, decorated chapels and funerary monuments that make it more than an attractive frontage.
Across Piazza Università, Palazzo San Giuliano has its own handsome entrance in coloured marble, with an honorary balcony above and a courtyard beyond. Built for a branch of the Paternò Castello family, it gradually acquired uses that would have brought a rather different clientele through the door: the Bristol hotel, the Teatro Machiavelli and, eventually, university offices. The palace was altered over time, but the entrance and the staircase retain the ambition of Vaccarini's design. These large residences have proved adaptable; university administration has inherited some remarkably good addresses.
Palazzo Gioeni, on the northern side of the square, contributes another eighteenth-century frontage and a richly worked pale-stone portal. There are smaller things to look for as well, particularly the four bronze lampposts illustrating figures from Catania's popular legends. During my visit, a brightly coloured elephant from an installation by the Sicilian artist Ligama added a much more contemporary presence. Before meeting the city's famous black elephant, I had encountered a decidedly less restrained relative.
