DIOCESAN MUSEUM

At the Palazzo dei Chierici, in Piazza Duomo, are the spaces designated for the diocesan museum. Spread over four floors and nine rooms, the works are divided into two sections. The first where relics and treasures from the cathedral of St. Agatha are kept and the other section that preserves furnishings and vestments from the other churches of the diocese. The latter section also includes a picture gallery.

Also on the ground floor is the ferculum of St. Agatha, also called the vara or casa vara. It is a work of high goldsmithing made of finely chiseled silver. Reliquaries, monstrances, frontals, candlesticks, sculptural works, painted canvases and many relics that testify to the devotion of the people of Catania to St. Agatha are part of the museum's collections.

From the Palazzo dei Chierici, which houses the museum, moreover, one can access the hypogea of the Achillian baths to the terraces, from where one can admire the panorama that sweeps from the cathedral square all the way to Mount Etna or, from the opposite side, one can have a wide view of the ancient fortifications of Charles V and the arches of the marina, all the way to the harbor.