In the ancient port city of Catania, on the fascinating island of Sicily, Italy

 “To have seen Italy without having seen Sicily is not to have seen Italy at all, for Sicily is the clue to everything.” -- Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe 

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(on the fascinating island of Sicily) Catania, located on Sicily's east coast at the base of the active volcano, Mount Etna, faces the Ionian Sea. It is the capital of the 58-municipality region known as the Metropolitan City of Catania. The largest Sicilian conurbation, as evidenced by the presence of important road and rail transport infrastructures as well as by the main airport in Sicily, Catania was founded in the 8th century BCE by Chalcidian Greeks. The city has weathered multiple geologic catastrophes: it was almost completely destroyed by a catastrophic earthquake in 1169. A major eruption and lava flow from nearby Mount Etna nearly swamped the city in 1669 and it suffered severe devastation from the 1693 Sicily earthquake.

+ During the 14th century, and into the Renaissance period, Catania was one of Italy's most important cultural, artistic, and political centers. It was the site of Sicily's first university, founded in 1434. It has been the native or adopted home of some of Italy's most famous artists and writers, including the composers Vincenzo Bellini and Giovanni Pacini, and the writers Giovanni Verga, Luigi Capuana, Federico De Roberto, and Nino Martoglio. The central Old Town of Catania features exuberant late-baroque architecture, prompted after the 1693 earthquake; the city is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

+ With one of the busiest ports in Italy, modern Catania is an industrial and transportation center, connected by rail with Palermo, Messina, and Syracuse. Industries include a variety of mechanical and chemical manufactures, food processing, and fishing. (About half of Sicily’s refined sulfur comes from the factories of Catania.)

+ The center of modern civic life is the Duomo Piazza, surrounded by 18th-century palaces and opening onto wide streets. From the original structure of the cathedral founded by the Norman count Roger I in 1091, three apses of dark lava and part of the transept remain. After the 1693 earthquake it was rebuilt by the architects Fra Fiolamo Palazotto and Giovanni Battista Vaccarini. The cathedral contains relics of St. Agatha and the tomb of the composer Vincenzo Bellini (a native of Catania). The Church of San Nicolo, the largest in Sicily, is connected with the former Benedictine monastery of the same name; it was begun in the 14th century and completed in the 17th century. The university (the first in Sicily) was founded in 1434 by Alfonso of Aragon, and its library still possesses a number of important medieval manuscripts.

+ Other notable landmarks include the Baroque Church of Santa Agata, the Town Hall by Vaccarini, the 18th-century the elephant fountain in the Duomo Piazza, the Collegiata (or royal chapel), the astronomical observatory, and the birthplace of Vincenzo Bellini (which is now a museum.)