Description of the attraction
Palazzo degli Elefanti - The Palace of the Elephants is an architectural monument in Catania, which now houses the city's municipality. It was originally called the Palazzo Senatorio.
The construction of the palace, which stands on the north side of the picturesque Piazza Duomo, began on the site of a destroyed medieval building three years after the terrible earthquake of 1693. The creation of the project is credited to Giovanni Battista Longobardo. However, it is reliably known that in the first half of the 18th century, the famous architect Giovanni Battista Vaccarini worked on the eastern, southern and western facades of the Palazzo, and the northern facade, overlooking the Piazza Universita square, is the creation of Carmelo Battaglia. Vaccarini designed a central balcony, supported by four granite columns, and decorated the pediments of other balconies with the letter "A" - after the patroness of Catania, Saint Agatha, and numerous sculptures of elephants - hence the name Palazzo.
A grand staircase leading to a courtyard with four covered galleries was added by Stefano Ittar later, in the early 19th century. The palace gatehouse houses two carts from the 18th century, one of which was made in Germany - the carriages are used during the celebrations in honor of St. Agatha to take the mayor of Catania to the church of Santa Agata alla Fornache to participate in the ceremony. Around the palace there is a small quadrangular garden. And in the ceremonial hall of the first floor of the Palazzo and in the Council Room, you can see drawings by the Sicilian artists Giuseppe Chouti and Francesco Contraffatto.
In 1944, as a result of popular unrest, a fire broke out in the palace, during which valuable archival documents and the Risorgimento Museum were destroyed, and the building itself was seriously damaged. After the fire, all rooms of the Palazzo degli Elefanti were restored and restored to their original form. The renovated palace opened its doors in 1952.
