In the natural context of the Hyblaean countryside you can spot dry stone walls between one prickly pear plant and another. In 2018 they were included in the List of Intangible Cultural Heritage by the UNESCO Committee for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage. The art of dry stone wall...

Quatrefoil is a type of frame that is often used in Gothic and Renaissance art and is composed of four lobes, or semi-circles....

Living in Ragusa since 1577 with Mariano Nicastro, the family was not initially involved in public life, until Filippo Nicastro married Baroness Giampiccolo and acquired more important titles, achieving wealth in 1760 when he was elected Knight of Malta....

One highly interesting detail is the splendid sundial that spans the forty-metre marble section that runs along the transept between the chapels of St. Benedict and St. Nicholas of Bari. The extraordinarily precise measuring instrument was made between 1839 and 1841 by two astronomers, W. S. von Wa...

The simulacrum of the patron saint is a wooden statue by Palermo-born sculptor Girolamo Bagnasco made in the mid-19th century. The Saint is depicted on horseback, with his triumphant gaze turned towards the sky, in the act of slaying the dragon. ...

Born in Poland in 1724, he moved to Rome in the 1750s to study architecture, then came to Catania where he married the daughter of famous architect Francesco Battaglia. Ittar was welcomed by Don Ignazio Paternò Castello, Prince of Biscari, who became his patron. He constructed important works i...

The church organ is located in the apse of the main altar. Together with the meticulously inlaid wooden choir, it creates a spectacular scenic backdrop. It is a monumental instrument, a great scenographic machine created by the artist Donato del Piano, who worked on it for 12 years and changed the ...

Giandomenico Gagini came from a family of sculptors originally from Bissone on Lake Lugano. Part of the Gagini family was active in Northern Italy and another worked from the mid-15th century in Sicily and Calabria. He immediately took up the family business, working in the field of statuary and...

The architect practised his profession in Catania in the second half of the 17th century, participating in the city's reconstruction after the earthquake of 1693. In addition to the works dedicated to the Benedictine complex, carried out alongside other architects including his uncle, Francesco Ba...

The altarpiece was created by Giandomenico Gagini for the 15th-century church of San Giorgio, and destroyed by the earthquake of 1693. The limestone work is now set up inside a room adjacent to the left nave of the church. The depiction follows the style of the period, influenced by the Spanish ru...