Interesting facts about Amenano river
The Amenano is the underground river of Catania. It has a long history full of anecdotes that have fueled myths and legends.
The Amenano River is today the symbol of the city's tenacity, the ability to rise from the ashes of lava and destruction, to overcome the arrogance of fire due to its peculiarity of mysteriously reappearing from nowhere. The name of this ancient watercourse derives from the homonymous Greek deity Amenanos with the body of a bull and the human face depicted in many coins of the ancient Katanè dating back to the fifth century BC. In the Middle Ages the river was called Judicello because it crossed the ancient Jewish quarter of Giudecca and this name remained in use until the nineteenth century. Buried by the eruption and lava flow of 1669, the Amenano became a silent and underground ghost: the lava flow covered a large part of the city until Lake Nicito disappeared (which today gives its name to the current street), once fed from the Amenano river, and cover almost the entire course of the river.
However, Catania still shows many shades of the river-god: the sites where the passage of the Amenano river can still be seen are the Fountain of the Amenano in Piazza Duomo, the Fountain of the seven canals of the fish market, the central fountain of Largo Paisiello, the wash house in the Cibali district, the cave at 'inside a restaurant in piazza Currò, the Terme Achilliane, the well of Gammazita and a part of the garden of villa Pacini.
