Museo Diocesano di Catania

Built on a basalt cliff overlooking the sea, the Norman Castle has held an important strategic position in the past. The cliff initially stood alone, it was the eruption of 1169 to close the strait that separated it from the mainland. 

The castle, a witness in the course of the centuries long struggle between the Argonesi of the Angevins of Naples and Sicily, was besieged and conquered several times, passing between the Viceroy and private property. During the sixteenth century it became the seat of a garrison that kept watch over the sea, and later also a terrible prison. Today it houses the Museo Civico intigrante that offers a journey into the past. The Museum houses a section mineralogical, paleontological and an archaeological one; Full exposure a small botanical garden, where it is exposed to the open air a collection of plants of great value.