CataniaMineo.
This is very probably the ancient Mene, founded by Ducetius, King of the Sicels, in the 5th c. BC, and soon Hellenized. A stronghold under the Arabs and a feudal city in the Middle Ages, it belonged to the "Queen's Chamber", i.e. it was the property of the queen, under Aragonese and Spanish rule, from 1361 to 1536. A Meteorogeodynamic Observatory was opened at Mineo in the 19th c. ; it studies meteorological and geological phenomena. The town possesses a well-stocked Library. Mineo is a land of poets and popular songs. Here in Mineo, in 1839, the great writer Luigi Capuana was born, the founder of Verismo, the ltalian school of realism, and his birth-place can still be visited in the town. The distinguished writer Giuseppe Bonaviri was also born at Mineo.

The town preserves its mediaeval layout, and the remains of the town walls and the castle date from that period. The three main quarters are named after three churches: Sant'Agrippina, San Pietro and Santa Maria Maggiore. In the first of these, Sant'Agrippina, altered after the earthquake in 1693, we can still admire the battlemented towers and the 14th c. apses, while the interior reflects the taste of the l8th c.; the wooden statues of the Nativily Scene are also l8th c., while the painted wooden statue of St Agrippina is 16th c. The second church, San Pietro, also rebuilt, contains the celebrated l7th c. statue of Christ at the Column, besides interesting architectural and sculptural elements of the late 18th c. The third church, Santa Maria Maggiore, rebuilt in the 18th c., on the same site as a pagan temple dedicated to the sun god, contains the fine painted alabaster statue of the Queen of the Angels, which Count Roger gave to the church in the 11th c.; there is also a 16th c. marble lavabo and a valuable gilded wooden organ (late l8th c.). Various 18th c. buildings at Mineo are of considerable historical and architectural interest.