Catania

Greek settlers from nearby Naxos took over a Sicel village here around 729 BC and founded Katane, with its acropolis on the hill of Montevergine. It was a centre of learning, home to the lawgiver Charondas and the poet Stesichorus, but suffered at the hands of Syracuse: Hieron expelled its people in 476 BC and renamed it Aetna, and Dionysius I sold its citizens into slavery in 403 BC. Rome took it in 263 BC, early in the First Punic War, and it became a wealthy port, even though an eruption of Etna in 121 BC buried much of the town.

Vandals, Goths and Byzantines followed, then two centuries of Arab rule, when it was known as the City of the Elephant, and the Normans. An earthquake almost destroyed Catania in 1169. Frederick II built the Castello Ursino in the 13th century; after the Sicilian Vespers of 1282 the Aragonese kings held their parliament here, and in 1434 Alfonso V founded Sicily's first university.

In 1669 Etna's lava reached the walls, which turned most of the flow into the port. In 1693 an earthquake levelled the city, and it was rebuilt in the late-Baroque style, with broad straight streets, by architects such as Giovanni Battista Vaccarini. A ferocious tornado killed 28 people in 1884, lava flows struck again in 1923 and 1928, and in 1943 Allied bombing caused heavy damage before the British Eighth Army took the city on 5 August. Industry made Catania known as the Manchester of southern Italy, and after a 1960s boom it became the commercial heart of eastern Sicily. Its Baroque centre is part of the UNESCO-listed Late Baroque Towns of the Val di Noto.

Catania's great festival belongs to Saint Agatha, its patron. From 3 to 5 February, and again on 17 August, the city honours her with one of the largest Catholic festivals in the world. Sixteen gilded candelore, each representing a medieval guild, are carried to the cathedral; devotees in long white tunics then haul her reliquary-bust on a heavy silver carriage through the neighbourhoods and up a steep slope.

The city is proud of its artists. The opera composer Vincenzo Bellini was born here, and the airport, the opera house and the main park carry his name; Giovanni Verga, born in Catania in 1840, became a leading writer of verismo, portraying the lives of Sicilian fishermen and stonemasons. In the late 1980s and 1990s an independent music scene flourished, producing Carmen Consoli, Mario Venuti and the indie rock band Uzeda. The opera season, a winter jazz festival, a tango festival and Etna Comics fill the calendar.

The elephant of lava stone in Piazza del Duomo, u Liotru, is the city's emblem, tied to legends of the sorcerer Heliodorus and perhaps to the dwarf elephants of prehistoric Sicily. Football is followed passionately: Catania FC claims around half a million supporters. Life is lived outdoors, along Via Etnea in the evening and on the beaches in summer, and the anti-Mafia movement Addiopizzo has had a Catania branch since 2006.

About 297,000 people live in the city itself and just over a million in the Metropolitan City of Catania, the most densely populated conurbation in Sicily. Immigrants make up about 6 per cent of residents, the largest groups born in Sri Lanka, Romania, Bangladesh, Mauritius and Senegal.

Catania is Sicily's industrial, logistical and commercial centre. STMicroelectronics has major offices here, at the heart of the high-technology cluster known as the Etna Valley, alongside chemical and pharmaceutical firms, the port and the airport; its university, founded in 1434, was the first in Sicily. Yet the city's growth stalled in the first decade of this century, and economic and social stagnation remains a theme of local life.

The fertile volcanic soil around Etna supports vineyards and citrus orchards, and the mountain is always present: its eruptions can disrupt flights. The old centre still holds dense working-class quarters such as Civita and San Cristoforo, while the 1950s demolition of San Berillo moved many families to new districts on the edge of the city. Each morning the Pescheria and Fera 'o Luni fill with shoppers, the day pauses for lunch, and in the evening the passeggiata moves along Via Etnea. In 2024 the metro was extended to Monte Po, part of a plan to carry it to Paternò and the airport.

Food is central to Catania's way of life, and street food is the easiest way into it. The arancini here are shaped like a cone, a nod to Etna, and stuffed most often with meat ragù or with ham and cheese. Bakeries sell cipollina, puff pastry filled with onion, tomato and ham; the bolognese, a small pizza topped with tomato, mozzarella, ham and boiled egg under a puff-pastry lid; and crispelle, fried dough balls filled with ricotta or anchovies. At festivals the stalls sell calia e simenza, toasted chickpeas and pumpkin seeds.

The old markets have their own specialities — sangeli (cooked pork blood), quarumi (tripe), zuzzu (pork jelly), mauru (edible seaweed) and raw seafood — and horse meat is a local tradition, grilled on street-side barbecues by shops known as arrusti e mancia, "roast it and eat it". The city's best-known pasta, pasta alla Norma, with fried aubergine, tomato sauce and salted ricotta, is named after Bellini's opera; others are pasta cco niuru, black with cuttlefish ink, and maccu, a purée of broad beans.

Catania is famous for its pastry shops. Cannoli filled with ricotta and almond pastries are sold all year; for Saint Agatha's feast come cassatelle, small cassatas, and olivette, olive-shaped sweets of almond paste; at Easter, aceddi ccu l'ovu, eggs baked into biscuit. In summer the city cools down with granita.