After the earthquake of 1693, the city was rebuilt with a rich and scenic architecture, within a unique urban context. The city has many museums and exhibition areas, including the Civic Museum of the former Bourbon prison, the Civic Gallery of Contemporary Art, the Civic Nature Museum, the Regional Museum of Ceramics, the Museum of Photography “Luigi Ghirri”, the Museum of Capuchins, the art and performance Museum of the Sicilian Puppets, the permanent market exhibition of ceramics, the permanent exhibition “the Villas of the Leopards” housed in the just restored Villa Patti. Important monuments and buildings are churches, convents and historical palaces, but also architectural gardens. Among them: Church of S. Maria del Monte, at the end of the Monumental Staircase; Church of St. James the Apostle, the patron saint of the town, that is one of the first churches rebuilt after the earthquake; the former Bourbon Prison, by the architect Natale Bonaiuto from Syracuse, that is a rare and interesting example of eighteenth-century Prison, and today is the Civic Museum; the Monumental Staircase of Santa Maria del Monte, with the decorated majolicas, symbol of the town.