Description
Le Ciminiere is Catania's exhibition and cultural center on Viale Africa, near the central station: an old 19th-century sulfur refinery, in brick and lava stone, turned into a space for exhibitions, museums, concerts and fairs, with its tall smokestacks still standing.
The main reason to visit is the Historical Museum of the 1943 Landing in Sicily, with weapons, uniforms, military maps, dioramas and life-size reconstructions of the key figures. In the same spaces are the Toy Museum, a cinema museum, a collection of antique maps of Sicily and one of vintage radios. Every year it also hosts Etna Comics.
This is where sulfur from the mines of central Sicily was ground and refined; the plants, abandoned in the 1960s, were restored starting in 1984 to a design by the architect Giacomo Leone. In November 2025 a fire destroyed the auditorium, which the locals called "Cutoliscio" for its black cladding, like lava pebbles.
The main reason to visit is the Historical Museum of the 1943 Landing in Sicily, with weapons, uniforms, military maps, dioramas and life-size reconstructions of the key figures. In the same spaces are the Toy Museum, a cinema museum, a collection of antique maps of Sicily and one of vintage radios. Every year it also hosts Etna Comics.
This is where sulfur from the mines of central Sicily was ground and refined; the plants, abandoned in the 1960s, were restored starting in 1984 to a design by the architect Giacomo Leone. In November 2025 a fire destroyed the auditorium, which the locals called "Cutoliscio" for its black cladding, like lava pebbles.