This beautiful building has a mysterious charm.

It is a true jewel of Sicilian rural baroque.

It was built under the guidance of Giovan Battista Vaccarini, a well-known architect who gave the current Baroque appearance to Catania between 1750 and 1756.

Owned by the Platania family, it is said to be called "Castello degli Schiavi" because it is topped by a loggia, built between the end of the 1700s and the beginning of the 1800s, which contains two statues of turks "facing" towards the sea as to call their companions to be freed by them, but more probably owes its name to the existence of a nearby stone quarry, so the place was formerly called "Scavo Crujllas".

At the entrance there is a large portal with an arch of lava stone on whose keystone there is a mask surmounted by a shell typical of the best Catanese baroque.

The building consists in two floors; in the basement there is a trap door from which begins an underground passage that seems to lead in ancient times to the Red Tower of Fiumefreddo.

On the upper floor, consisting of eight rooms, many precious objects are preserved.

At each corner of this floor there are small towers, which gave the building the nickname of castle.

In the large courtyard there is a well and a small church built in 1544 by Ferdinando Gravina-Crujllas, as we read in the tombstone at the entrance.

This place marked the history of cinema, having been set in the film "L'orgia" by Pier Paolo Pasolini and in the film "Il Padrino" by Francis Ford Coppola.

It was also chosen by Franco Battiato for the production of the music video "Shock in My Town".

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