The patron saint of Aci Castello is Saint Maurus, celebrated on 15 January. The mother church dedicated to him, from the 17th century, stands out for its oriental Baroque style and a broad central dome.
Tradition holds that Aci Castello and the other places in the Aci area originate from Xiphonia, a mysterious vanished Greek city, probably located today within the territory of Aci Catena. The poets Virgil and Ovid gave rise to the founding myth from the love story between a nymph named Galatea and a shepherd boy named Aci, also pursued by the cyclops Polyphemus, himself in love with the beautiful Galatea. In Roman times there existed a city called Akis, which took part in the Punic Wars; in the Norman Middle Ages the town was known as Jachium, and it was precisely the Normans who built the castle still known today as the Castle of Aci. The territory holds the Integral Nature Reserve of Isola Lachea and the Faraglioni dei Ciclopi, which protects the land and sea areas of the archipelago of the same name.
