CONVITTO CUTELLI

Built in 1760 by testamentary will of the jurisconsult Mario Cutelli, count of Villa Rosata and lord of the Alminusa who established that in case of extinction of the male line of his successors a part of his patrimony would have been used for the foundation of a “College of men nobles” to form the city’s ruling class.

The building – one of the flagships of the eighteenth-century architecture of Catania – was created by Giovan Battista Vaccarini who oversaw the internal part (circular courtyard with black and white flooring characterized by the presence of a large tower clock, placed among the statues of Time and of Fame) and by Francesco Battaglia who designed the neoclassical façade overlooking Via Vittorio Emanuele, Via Ventimiglia and Via Teatro Massimo.

Other architectural gems are the marble staircase and the frescoes depicting important jurists and scientists present in the Aula Magna where in 1837 the insurgents against the Bourbons were condemned.