Cattedrale di Acireale, Acireale: visitor guide

The cathedral of Maria Santissima Annunziata is the main church of Acireale and dominates piazza del Duomo, opposite the Palazzo Municipale and beside the basilica of Santi Pietro e Paolo. It is dedicated to the Annunciation, but in the town it is linked above all to the cult of Saint Venera, the patron saint. In the fifteenth century there was only a small chapel here with an image of the Annunciation; the building of the present cathedral was decided by the town council on 8 October 1597 and began the following year, and on one of the four great piers of the dome, in a cartouche of lava stone at head height, you can still read the date 1600.

What to see

Above the marble portal, in the large niche, is the Annunciation group, made between 1668 and 1672 in the Messina workshop of Placido Blandamonte: it arrived by sea at Santa Maria La Scala and from there was hauled up to the town along the steep slopes. The two bell towers flanking the façade look like twins but are not: the right-hand one is the older and also served as a watchtower, while the left-hand one, the rose window and the loggia with small columns are neo-Gothic, from the nineteenth century, with a contribution by Giovan Battista Filippo Basile. The dome, begun in 1655, was completed in 1732 to a design by Paolo Amico.

The church has a Latin-cross plan and three naves. The vault of the central nave was painted in 1907 by Giuseppe Sciuti, helped by his pupil Primo Panciroli, with the Orchestra of Angels, the Choir of Virgins and the Annunciation; on the side altars are canvases by Pietro Paolo Vasta and Giacinto Platania. In the right transept opens the chapel of Saint Venera, begun in 1658 and richly decorated, with the reliquary urn and silver bust of the saint, frescoes by Antonio Filocamo from 1712 and stucco statues of Saint Thecla and Saint Rosalia. In a room by the entrance wall is the chased silver float that carries the image of the saint during her feast.