Room 28 - Numismatics-Ittar

The Numismatics-Ittar Room

NUMISMATICS COLLECTION

The numismatics heritage of the Civic Museum of Catania, consisting of approximately 2000 coins, is basically composed by the collection of the Benedictine Museum of Saint Nicholas l’Arena and by other coins donated to the Civic Museum by generous benefactors such as its founder Prof. Guido Libertini, Dr. Vincenzo Pappalardo and above all Dr. Rodolfo Spahr, a great expert and scholar of Byzantine coinage until the 19^th century. (Giuseppe Guzzetta)

ITTAR COLLECTION

Between the 18^th and the beginning of the 19^th century, Sebastiano Ittar was the main character of the modern construction of the city of Catania. Since 1952, thanks to the purchase of the collection from the heirs of administrators of that time, the architect’s collection has belonged to the Civic Museum of Castello Ursino. Sebastiano, son of art and architect like his maternal grandfather Francesco Battaglia and his father Stefano, the latter took part in the rebirth of the city after the catastrophic events of the end of the 17^th century.  His artworks, together with Giovan Battista Vaccarini’s ones, filled the city with majestic churches and Baroque palaces. In his sketches of monuments, in his watercolors and copper engravings of urban plans, some of which displayed in Room 28 of the Open Space, images of an ancient Catania, glimpses of landscapes, squares and views, now erased by time and the actions of man, are brought back to paper. Other sketches of the many projects that Ittar drew and proposed to various organizations of the time are preserved in the Ittar Fund, kept in the Museum. (From “Ittar: La matita e la pietra". A cura di N.F. Neri, R. Carchiolo, 2018)

Pieces of the hall