Catania Urban History from the Greek Polis to the Norman City｜Italy

Throughout the tour, the story, supported by architectural evidence, of the city's evolution, starting from the original Hellenic polis with its walls, sacred area, domus, and characteristic urban layout, up to the transition to the Roman "Catina" with the transformation of the layout from a Hellenic diagonal to a centric one with a cardo and decumanus.

We will discover the ancient Roman Forum and how it was integrated into the city, both in terms of urban planning and its social use. Then it will be the turn of the Byzantine "facies" of Catania. We are in the late antiquity period, and this will be commented on with the observation of its extraordinary and original church architecture with a triconch shape, defined by many as "Byzantine cubes"

The tour ends in the cathedral square with the story of the medieval square, its original shape and size, and the palaces that surrounded it before its transformation and expansion in the Baroque style. Here we will delve into the history and architecture of the great Benedictine monastery, now the Cathedral, built in 1094. It features a medieval architecture that is halfway between a church and a fortress, and was originally located by the sea as an ideal "gateway" to the Norman city with its commercial warehouse, before the lava flow of 1669 completely transformed its layout.

The tour presents the image of a city heavily transformed both by history and by disastrous natural events, including earthquakes and lava flows, revealing Catania as it was and comparing it with what it is today