The practice of collecting antiquities, common in the 18th century, was well established also in Taormina. Here, in addition to the famous collection of the Duke of Santo Stefano, until now never before studied in depth, there were other “lesser”, in fact almost unknown collections belonging to citizens involved in the protection of ancient monuments and the study of the city’s history.
Thanks to manuscripts, correspondence and written works by these same collectors, as well as information provided by travellers, it is possible to reconstruct the physiognomy of these collections that were composed above all of objects of local origin, which, apart from a few important exceptions, have all been lost.