The church of Maria Santissima Assunta in Cielo, better known as the Chiesa Madre (Mother Church), is the main Catholic place of worship in Gela. It faces piazza Umberto I and was built by pulling down the thirteenth-century church of Santa Maria de Platea, which had become unsafe, partly because of the earthquake of 1693.
What to see
The site has a very long history: the church of Santa Maria de Platea, of the thirteenth to fourteenth century, stood on the foundations of a Greek temple of the sixth to fifth century BC, probably dedicated to Hera. Work on the present church began on 23 January 1766 and ended in 1799; the new bell tower, of 1837, was paid for by the parish priest Luigi Mallia of the marquises of Torreforte to a design by Emanuele Di Bartolo, and in 1844 the neoclassical sandstone façade by Giuseppe Di Bartolo Morselli was added. The façade, inspired by the ancient Greek temples, has Doric columns on the first order and Ionic on the second, a Doric frieze with metopes and triglyphs and a pediment with a Marian crest; above the side aisles stand the statues of Faith and Hope. At the base of the left corner pillar you can see the remnant of a fluted column, probably taken from the acropolis of Gela. The hemispherical dome rests on an octagonal drum with four windows.
The interior, wide and bright, is a Latin cross with a basilican layout, with three aisles separated by pillars and neoclassical arcades decorated in gold leaf, and the dome over the crossing. In the apse the cubic altar is carved from a large local stone from the Settefarine district, consecrated on 21 March 1996, and the canvas of the Assumption of Mary is by Giuseppe Tresca, of 1786. In the left aisle the chapel of the Passion holds the wooden statues of Our Lady of Sorrows and the Dead Christ used in Holy Week, and another chapel keeps the Byzantine icon of the Madonna dell'Alemanna, patron of the city; in the right aisle the chapel of the Blessed Sacrament has a seventeenth-century crucifix and a wooden icon of the Madonna and Child datable to the fourteenth century. There are also altarpieces attributable to Francesco and Giuseppe Vaccaro, Deodato Guinaccia, Giuseppe Tresca and Giuseppe Barone.
Visiting
The church is in piazza Umberto I, in Gela. The most recent restoration, finished in 2025, covered the bell tower and the façade: the sandstone was cleaned and the portals returned to their original colour, wagon green. Opening hours and visiting arrangements do not appear in the sources consulted: check with the parish, which has an official website.
Our editors' tip
On Good Friday in Gela the «u lamentu» is sung, a sad dialect chant performed by elderly women and accompanied by a drum in the quiet of the Way of the Cross. The wooden figure of Christ, set on the cross in piazza Calvario, then returns in procession to the Chiesa Madre.
