The Sicilian Staircase That Puts on a New Outfit Every Summer

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Every July, in the hill town of Caltagirone in southeastern Sicily, something quietly extraordinary happens. A team of craftspeople removes the ceramic tiles from the face of a 142-step staircase — and replaces every single one with a brand new design. Then they light thousands of oil lamps, and the whole town gathers to watch it glow.

A Staircase Unlike Any Other

The Scala di Santa Maria del Monte is not famous in the way the Colosseum is famous. No standard tour operator includes it in the itinerary. Yet those who find it tend to say the same thing: it is one of the most beautiful sights they have ever seen.

Each of the 142 steps is faced with hand-painted ceramic tiles. No two are the same. As you climb, the designs shift — geometric Arab-influenced patterns giving way to Norman figurative motifs, then Spanish Baroque flourishes. The staircase is not just a staircase. It is a timeline of 2,500 years of Sicilian history.

Built in 1608 to connect the lower town to the Church of Santa Maria del Monte at the top, the steps were plain stone for more than a century. Then Caltagirone’s ceramic artists began to tile them — and never stopped.

Where It All Began

Caltagirone has been producing ceramics for 2,500 years. The Greeks arrived in Sicily around the 8th century BC and found something invaluable in the hills of Val di Noto: a rich, reddish-brown clay, ideal for shaping and firing.

They made pots and amphorae, storage vessels and funeral urns. The Romans continued the tradition. The techniques were reliable, the clay inexhaustible, the demand constant.

But it was the Arabs who changed everything — in Sicily, as in so many things. The Arab presence in Sicily lasted from the 9th to the 11th century, and its influence on food, architecture, language, and craft never entirely left.

The Influence That Changed Sicilian Ceramics Forever

Arab craftspeople brought something entirely new: metallic glazes. They introduced the technique of coating fired clay in a tin-based enamel, then painting over it in vivid cobalt blue, deep green, and bright yellow before a second firing.

The result was a tile that could hold colour like a painting — a surface that could carry a story, a symbol, a scene from daily life. And it didn’t fade.

This is the palette the world now associates with Caltagirone ceramics — bold cobalt blue and deep green on a white base, outlined in black. It didn’t originate in Tuscany or Venice. It came from North Africa, via Sicily.

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More Than 120 Workshops Are Still Active

Unlike many Italian artisan traditions that survive only in museums, Caltagirone’s ceramic craft is a living one. The town has more than 120 active botteghe — workshops — most of them small, family-run, and open to visitors.

You can watch craftspeople wheel the clay, paint intricate designs by hand using traditional brushes, and load kilns that have not changed much in 500 years. Many workshops sell directly, with pieces ranging from a few euros to several hundred.

This is not a heritage performance put on for tourists. It is a working industry. Caltagirone ceramics are exported across Europe and to the United States. The style is immediately recognisable — and it is made here, by hand, in small rooms that smell of clay and glaze.

The July Festival That Sets the Staircase Alight

Every year in late July, Caltagirone holds the Luminaria di San Giacomo — the Festival of Saint James. For one extraordinary night, the face of the staircase is covered not with its everyday tiles but with thousands of small oil lamps, arranged to form a single image.

When the lights are extinguished and the lamps are lit all at once, a figure emerges from the darkness — a phoenix, a pattern of stars, a scene from the town’s history — visible from miles away across the Sicilian hills.

The design changes every year. Local families compete for the privilege of creating it. Sicily has no shortage of ancient traditions, but this one stops the whole town in its tracks.

How to Plan a Visit

Caltagirone sits in southeastern Sicily, roughly 65 kilometres from Catania and 80 from Syracuse. It is part of the Val di Noto — a cluster of Baroque hilltowns rebuilt after a devastating earthquake in 1693, and recognised collectively as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The best time to visit is outside the summer heat: November to April, when the workshops are quieter and the streets are yours to walk without a crowd. If you can arrange to be there in late July, the Luminaria is worth planning your entire trip around.

Don’t miss the Museo della Ceramica in the Villa Comunale gardens. It traces the full history of Caltagirone’s craft from the Greeks to the 20th century, and gives the staircase the context it deserves. Italy has many remarkable pottery towns, each with its own story — but Caltagirone stands apart for the sheer age of its tradition.

When you reach Via Luigi Sturzo — the main ceramics street — resist buying at the first workshop. Walk the full length first. Compare the styles, talk to the makers. The most beautiful pieces are rarely in the biggest shops.

Then climb the staircase. All 142 steps. And look back at where you came from.

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There is something quietly moving about Caltagirone. Here is a craft that has survived 2,500 years of history — Greek colonisation, Roman rule, Arab influence, Norman conquest, Spanish domination, earthquake, and emigration. And it is still here. Still being made by hand. Still painting the world in cobalt blue and deep green and sunlit yellow.

The tiles on that staircase are not just decoration. They are continuity. They are a city saying: we were here, and we are still here, and look what we made.

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Plan Your Italy Trip

Ready to explore Sicily’s ceramic heritage for yourself? Our Ultimate Italy Travel Guide has everything you need to plan an unforgettable Italian adventure — from the hilltowns of Sicily to the canals of Venice.

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