The restoration of the tower is aimed at the creation of a museum of the coastal towers of Sicily. Torre Nubia, which is named after the district where it stands, is one of 150 coastal towers built between the 14th and 17th centuries. The original purpose of these structures was to signal, by day and by night through mirrors and fires, the arrival of hostile boats (such as the Barbary and Saracens pirates) that represented a serious danger to the inhabitants of coastal cities in southern Italy.