Description
Palazzo Biscari is the most important private palace in Catania: a Baroque mansion built on top of the city's 16th-century walls, facing the sea, with a facade laden with sculpture and a Rococo ballroom all mirrors and stucco.
It was commissioned by the princes of Biscari, of the Paternò Castello family, after the earthquake of 1693, and the work went on for almost the entire 18th century. The Biscari were among the few noble families granted royal permission to build on the walls.
The side facing the waterfront is the most spectacular. The seven great windows are framed by the sculptures of Antonino Amato from Messina, and the allegorical groups on the facade celebrate Abundance, Prosperity, Fertility, and Wisdom.
You enter through a grand doorway on Via Museo Biscari, which leads to the courtyard with a theatrical pincer-shaped staircase. Inside, the jewel is the Ballroom: mirrors, stucco, and Rococo frescoes painted by Matteo Desiderato, Sebastiano Lo Monaco, and Luigi Mayer.
In the middle of the ballroom opens a small dome where the orchestra once played, frescoed with the Glory of the Biscari family. You climb up to it by a stucco-adorned staircase that Prince Ignazio called "a fiocco di nuvola", like a puff of cloud, in the gallery overlooking the sea.
Among the other rooms are the Sala dei Feudi, with large canvases of the family's estates, the princess's apartments, with inlaid wood walls and Roman-era marble floors, the Gallery of Birds, and the Don Quixote Room.
Ignazio Paternò Castello, fifth Prince of Biscari, was a passionate archaeologist. In 1758 he opened a museum of antiquities and natural history in one wing of the palace, which Grand Tour travelers visited with the prince himself as their guide. The collections moved to Castello Ursino in the 20th century.
The German baron Riedesel judged it one of the finest and most complete museums in Italy, "and perhaps in the world". On May 3, 1787, Goethe arrived and was received by the new prince: Ignazio had recently died, and it was his son who did the honors.
The collection's most famous sculptures came from the excavations Ignazio carried out in the city, at the Roman theater and elsewhere. The Biscari Torso, a colossal Roman-era bust, was almost as famous in the 18th century as the Belvedere Torso.
Don't miss
• The great windows on the waterfront.
• The Ballroom.
• The "puff of cloud" staircase.
• The princess's apartments.
Did you know?
• In 2008 Coldplay shot the video for Violet Hill in the palace.
• The museum's coin collection held about eight thousand ancient coins.
It was commissioned by the princes of Biscari, of the Paternò Castello family, after the earthquake of 1693, and the work went on for almost the entire 18th century. The Biscari were among the few noble families granted royal permission to build on the walls.
The side facing the waterfront is the most spectacular. The seven great windows are framed by the sculptures of Antonino Amato from Messina, and the allegorical groups on the facade celebrate Abundance, Prosperity, Fertility, and Wisdom.
You enter through a grand doorway on Via Museo Biscari, which leads to the courtyard with a theatrical pincer-shaped staircase. Inside, the jewel is the Ballroom: mirrors, stucco, and Rococo frescoes painted by Matteo Desiderato, Sebastiano Lo Monaco, and Luigi Mayer.
In the middle of the ballroom opens a small dome where the orchestra once played, frescoed with the Glory of the Biscari family. You climb up to it by a stucco-adorned staircase that Prince Ignazio called "a fiocco di nuvola", like a puff of cloud, in the gallery overlooking the sea.
Among the other rooms are the Sala dei Feudi, with large canvases of the family's estates, the princess's apartments, with inlaid wood walls and Roman-era marble floors, the Gallery of Birds, and the Don Quixote Room.
Ignazio Paternò Castello, fifth Prince of Biscari, was a passionate archaeologist. In 1758 he opened a museum of antiquities and natural history in one wing of the palace, which Grand Tour travelers visited with the prince himself as their guide. The collections moved to Castello Ursino in the 20th century.
The German baron Riedesel judged it one of the finest and most complete museums in Italy, "and perhaps in the world". On May 3, 1787, Goethe arrived and was received by the new prince: Ignazio had recently died, and it was his son who did the honors.
The collection's most famous sculptures came from the excavations Ignazio carried out in the city, at the Roman theater and elsewhere. The Biscari Torso, a colossal Roman-era bust, was almost as famous in the 18th century as the Belvedere Torso.
Don't miss
• The great windows on the waterfront.
• The Ballroom.
• The "puff of cloud" staircase.
• The princess's apartments.
Did you know?
• In 2008 Coldplay shot the video for Violet Hill in the palace.
• The museum's coin collection held about eight thousand ancient coins.