Start at the town hall
Every Italian birth is written into a register at the town hall, the Comune. In Catania the desk that keeps it is the Ufficio di Stato Civile, the civil records office. Ask them for a fresh copy on paper, signed by hand. To apostille a Birth Certificate in Catania you need that copy, not a scan and not an old one from a drawer.
Why the Prefettura, not the court
A birth record is a plain state paper, so it takes the plain state route. The Prefettura, the prefect's local branch of the government, adds the apostille. An apostille is one stamp that shows the signature on your copy is real, so an office abroad can trust it. Court papers and notary deeds go to the Procura della Repubblica instead, the prosecutor's branch of the court.
Before you look up how to apostille a Birth Certificate, make sure a clerk has signed the copy by hand. The Prefettura keeps a list of those signatures and checks yours against it. A print-out with no clerk's name on it can be turned away for that reason alone. Tell the town hall the copy is going abroad.
The tax stamp and the wait
The state charges a tax stamp of €16 per document, and some papers are exempt. The apostille cost for a Birth Certificate in Catania follows that rule, so ask the desk whether your reason for the request makes it exempt. The town hall may charge for the copy on top. No fixed wait is promised, so begin early if a visa date is close.
Where families need it
Families send this record abroad more often than any other. It backs a claim to citizenship by descent, a wedding in another country, a child's place at school, a pension file, or a change of name. Italy has been in the Hague Convention since 1978, so a member state takes the stamped copy on its own. You can apostille a Birth Certificate in Italy even when the person now lives overseas.
Language and stale copies
The stamp says nothing about the words, so a reader abroad may still want them in its own tongue. Many offices also refuse a copy that was issued long ago, so pull a fresh one rather than reuse the one in your file. If the country sits outside the Hague Convention, full legalisation of a Birth Certificate in Catania is the route instead.