PALAZO BISCARI

Palazzo Biscari at the marina, is one of the most important Baroque monuments in Catania. The privately owned palace was built after the earthquake of 1693 at the behest of the Paternò Castello family of the Biscari princes on the sixteenth-century fortifications of the city. The project was commissioned by Prince Ignatius III of Biscari to the architect Alonzo Di Benedetto. Ignazio's son, Vincenzo, continued with the completion of the building by commissioning the sculptor Antonino Amato to make seven splendid plastic reliefs of the large windows on the facade overlooking Via Cardinale Dusmet. The reliefs represent the allegories of Abundance, Prosperity, Fertility and Wisdom. The palace is accessed from via Museo Biscari through a large portal that gives access to the central courtyard. Via a pincer staircase you enter the ambulatory, & nbsp; and then to the picture gallery and various halls. Gorgeous in design & nbsp; and in the decorations the ballroom, in Rococo style. Conceived as the case of a guitar, the special balcony of the central dome was used to house the orchestra. Mirrors, stuccos and frescoes alternate on the walls. Next to the hall, towards the marina, there is the gallery that flanks the terraces and at the bottom the "cloud-like" staircase that allows access to the orchestra balcony. From the ballroom and the gallery it is possible to access the apartments of the princess, with wood inlay paneling and marble floors reminiscent of imperial Rome. The building once housed the Biscari museum, home to the collections made up of Ignazio Paternò Castello, Prince of Biscari, great scholar, patron and forerunner of archaeological disciplines. Today the prince's collections are in the civic museum of Castello Ursino.