The church of the Santissimo Salvatore e Rosario is a church in Gela on corso Vittorio Emanuele, with a bare stone façade and a bell tower covered in coloured majolica. It is open only on special occasions, such as the celebration of the Madonna of the Rosary or certain events of Gela's Holy Week.
What to see
In 1585 the small church of Santa Maria di Gesù was built on the site, having previously stood outside the Frederician walls and been pulled down because it was prey to pirate raids. Between 1796 and 1838 the little church was demolished and rebuilt under its present name, dedicated to the Most Holy Saviour and the Madonna of the Rosary, and it was opened to the public in 1842, as an inscription on the south side of the nave records. Outside the building is flat and plain, without decoration: the front was never built, so everything has remained in bare stone, with a large rectangular window in the façade and a cornice of tiles.
The interior is a single nave, with a quadrangular presbytery and, on each side, three chapels with as many altars between fluted pilasters. Above the left-hand choir loft is the case of an eighteenth-century pipe organ; the barrel vault above the presbytery is decorated with lunettes bearing frescoes of 1841 by Filippo Casabene: the Annunciation, the Raising of Lazarus, the Woman Taken in Adultery and the Cleansing of the Temple. The bell tower, of 1810, has a pyramidal spire covered in yellow and verdigris-green majolica tiles, probably among the last of a nineteenth-century Sicilian production: for this reason, in the early months of 2026, the bell tower and majolica were completely restored.
Visiting
The church is on corso Vittorio Emanuele, in Gela. In the twentieth century it stayed closed for many years and reopened in 1971 after a long restoration, made possible only by the faithful's donations; another complete restoration, between the 1980s and 1990s, brought to light several crypts with burials and cisterns of the Greek age. Since it is open only on special occasions, it is best to check the dates with the parish before going.
Our editors' tip
On the right flank, which gives onto via Salvatore Damaggio Fischetti, look for the side portal of squared, shaped stone blocks, with two flat pilasters carrying an architrave topped by a segmental pediment.
