The Ursino Castle is located in the center of Catania and today houses the civic art collection. The Castle was built by the will of Frederick II of Swabia between 1239 and 1240. The aim was to create a residence that could guarantee the defense of the family. In the following centuries it was almost abandoned until 1988 when the restoration and recovery works began. The Civic Museum was born thanks to the donations of illustrious private Catania collectors, therefore it represents a testimony of the cultural history of the city. The Museum houses a collection of paintings and sculptures from different periods from the fourteenth to the nineteenth century. The history of the collections begins in 1826, when Giovan Battista Finocchiaro from Catania left his precious collection of paintings to the city of Catania. This collection, including many paintings of the Neapolitan school, also included the large one depicting St. Christopher by Pietro Novelli. To this first group of works is added, in 1866, the collection of Benedictines which came into the possession of the Municipality of Catania following the dissolution of the religious corporations. On the second floor of the museum there are drawings, engravings, numismatic objects and textile machines from a nineteenth-century Catania factory.