Greco-Roman Catania, the quintessential “palimpsest city” — erased and rewritten over the centuries after eruptions and earthquakes — reveals a new fragment of its long and troubled history with the public opening, for the first time, of the so-called “Portico dell’Atleta". This underground site (hypogeum) was discovered in the 1990s beneath the street level of the monumental Via Crociferi, which is a World Heritage Site for churches and Baroque architecture. The site's restitution, which will be presented on Friday, February 13, during a meeting with scholars, researchers, and institutions, is the result of extensive research, restoration, and enhancement efforts conducted in recent years by the University of Catania (NRRP Changes project) in collaboration with the Archaeological Park of Catania and the Aci Valley of the Sicilian Region, which manages the site. The Portico dell'Atleta, which is accessible through a small door beneath the Alessi staircase, is home to two enigmatic underground spaces that are believed to have originated in the Roman era: a semi-subterranean corridor that is partially covered and adorned with niches and exedrae, as well as a mosaic walkway that, according to scholars, was likely a component of a grand monumental structure constructed in the 1st century AD in the southeastern region of the Montevergine hill, the oldest area of the city of Catania that has been inhabited since prehistoric times. Inside the “Portico,” where the natural half-light projects the visitor into a context of fascination and continuous discovery, the extraordinary Statue of the Athlete will be displayed — a marble torso of a beautiful young man, found in a walled niche inside the same site in January 1989. The Athlete, pending further investigation—petrographical on the marble and archaeometric—is dated to the first century AD. The Catania Archaeological Park will conduct restoration work on the statue of the Athlete and the Portico site in the upcoming months. The worksites will be in open mode, visible to the public during normal visits.