Museo Civico di Castello Ursino

The Museo Civico di Castello Ursino is housed, as its name suggests, within the fortress of the same name, built between the end of 1239 and the beginning of 1240 by Frederick II of Swabia. Originally it stood on top of a promontory, in a position that ensured a strategic relationship with the sea and with the city of Catania; however, the 1669 eruption of Mount Etna radically altered the morphology of the surrounding landscape, and the castle, no longer elevated, lost its military function. Over the centuries it never ceased to be used, passing from Norman fortress to Aragonese royal residence and, later, to the residence of the Spanish viceroys. It was restored in 1934 and, from that same year, has housed archaeological collections dating from the medieval, Renaissance, and early modern periods. A further restoration campaign was carried out in 1988. The Museo Civico di Castello Ursino in Catania preserves a collection of Mexican artifacts originating from the two most important and emblematic eighteenth-century collections: that of Prince Biscari and that of the Benedictine monks. It was an interest in the exotic that led the monks and other travelers, during their journeys and in the various antiquarian markets of Naples, Rome, Florence, and Venice, to seek out and purchase objects such as those now preserved in the collections.