Description
The Cathedral of Saint Agatha is Catania's Duomo: it towers over Piazza del Duomo with a Baroque facade of white Carrara marble and keeps the relics of the city's patron saint, the heart of local devotion and of the great city festival in February.
The church is almost a thousand years old, yet it shows three ages. The Normans built it at the end of the 11th century as a fortress church; the earthquake of 1693 all but leveled it, and it was rebuilt in the 18th century, with a facade designed by Giovanni Battista Vaccarini.
Of the Norman church, the three apses survive, made of large blocks of lava stone and visible from the courtyard of the archbishop's palace. On the facade, the six granite columns of the lower order are ancient and may come from the city's Roman theater.
Inside, the place dearest to the people of Catania is the Chapel of Saint Agatha, at the end of the right aisle. A marble doorway from 1495 closes off the "cammaredda", the little room where the reliquary bust and the silver casket with the relics are kept.
The silver reliquary bust was made in Limoges by a goldsmith from Siena between 1373 and 1376. The casket, a masterpiece of late Gothic goldsmithing, holds the cases with the different parts of the saint's body and also the veil that, according to tradition, Agatha wore.
Set against a pillar of the right aisle is the tomb of Vincenzo Bellini, in marble and bronze. The Catania-born composer died in 1835: his body came home from Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris only in 1876, more than forty years later.
In the Chapel of the Virgin, in the right transept, lie the 14th-century Aragonese kings of Sicily: Frederick III and other members of the royal family rest in a Roman sarcophagus. In the main apse, the late 16th-century wooden choir tells the life of Agatha in bas-relief.
In 1040 a Byzantine general carried the relics off to Constantinople. They stayed there for 86 years, until in 1126 two men, the Frenchman Gilbert and the Calabrian Goselinus, brought them back to Sicily after an adventurous journey. On August 17 the city still celebrates their return.
The church has seen two tragedies. On February 4, 1169, an earthquake brought down the ceiling during the saint's feast, killing many worshippers and the bishop who was saying Mass. In 1693 the bell tower, about 100 meters tall, collapsed onto the church, and more than seven thousand people died under the rubble.
A legend tells that in 1232 Frederick II, determined to punish the rebellious city, changed his mind during a Mass in the cathedral: on his breviary had appeared the words "Noli offendere Patriam Agathae", do not harm Agatha's homeland.
Don't miss
• The Chapel of Saint Agatha.
• The tomb of Vincenzo Bellini.
• The Chapel of the Virgin with the royal tombs.
• The Norman apses in lava stone.
Did you know?
• The face of Saint Agatha's bust was modeled on that of the funeral statue of Queen Constance of Aragon, who is buried in the cathedral.
• The words from the legend of Frederick II are also carved on the main door.
The church is almost a thousand years old, yet it shows three ages. The Normans built it at the end of the 11th century as a fortress church; the earthquake of 1693 all but leveled it, and it was rebuilt in the 18th century, with a facade designed by Giovanni Battista Vaccarini.
Of the Norman church, the three apses survive, made of large blocks of lava stone and visible from the courtyard of the archbishop's palace. On the facade, the six granite columns of the lower order are ancient and may come from the city's Roman theater.
Inside, the place dearest to the people of Catania is the Chapel of Saint Agatha, at the end of the right aisle. A marble doorway from 1495 closes off the "cammaredda", the little room where the reliquary bust and the silver casket with the relics are kept.
The silver reliquary bust was made in Limoges by a goldsmith from Siena between 1373 and 1376. The casket, a masterpiece of late Gothic goldsmithing, holds the cases with the different parts of the saint's body and also the veil that, according to tradition, Agatha wore.
Set against a pillar of the right aisle is the tomb of Vincenzo Bellini, in marble and bronze. The Catania-born composer died in 1835: his body came home from Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris only in 1876, more than forty years later.
In the Chapel of the Virgin, in the right transept, lie the 14th-century Aragonese kings of Sicily: Frederick III and other members of the royal family rest in a Roman sarcophagus. In the main apse, the late 16th-century wooden choir tells the life of Agatha in bas-relief.
In 1040 a Byzantine general carried the relics off to Constantinople. They stayed there for 86 years, until in 1126 two men, the Frenchman Gilbert and the Calabrian Goselinus, brought them back to Sicily after an adventurous journey. On August 17 the city still celebrates their return.
The church has seen two tragedies. On February 4, 1169, an earthquake brought down the ceiling during the saint's feast, killing many worshippers and the bishop who was saying Mass. In 1693 the bell tower, about 100 meters tall, collapsed onto the church, and more than seven thousand people died under the rubble.
A legend tells that in 1232 Frederick II, determined to punish the rebellious city, changed his mind during a Mass in the cathedral: on his breviary had appeared the words "Noli offendere Patriam Agathae", do not harm Agatha's homeland.
Don't miss
• The Chapel of Saint Agatha.
• The tomb of Vincenzo Bellini.
• The Chapel of the Virgin with the royal tombs.
• The Norman apses in lava stone.
Did you know?
• The face of Saint Agatha's bust was modeled on that of the funeral statue of Queen Constance of Aragon, who is buried in the cathedral.
• The words from the legend of Frederick II are also carved on the main door.