Piazza Duomo holds not only Catania’s cathedral (whose exterior, like many other buildings and cobblestones throughout the city, is built from volcanic rock), but also this obelisk holding an elephant, what has become an emblem of the city. Bringing to mind a similar elephant structure in Rome, the obelisk serves as another reference of the many invaders that have come to define Sicily (just as the landscape, in the form of volcanic rock, has also defined Sicily). Moreover, the Sicilians’ name for the elephant obelisk—“Liotru”—references Elidoro, an eighth-century magician who tried to bring the elephant to life. This idea of the magic or mysticism of Sicily that we have talked about in class fully manifests itself here, particularly in the way another legend takes shape about the elephant: according to a twelfth-century geographer, the statue kept the city safe from Mount Etna, an theory that would prove untrue with Etna’s later damaging effects on Catania.