The church of the Santissimo Salvatore is in the north-eastern part of the old centre of Paternò, close to the modern town, and gives its name to the quarter. It was built in the first half of the seventeenth century in the lower part of the town by the Congregation of the Santissimo Salvatore, which in 1632 obtained permission from the archdiocese of Catania to celebrate Masses before the altar with the painting of the Purification. After 1790, with the offerings of the faithful, it was restored, and around the second half of the nineteenth century, once completed, it was blessed.
What to see
In 1873 the Franciscan friars from the friary on the hill, confiscated by the State under the laws of 1866, settled here and ran the church until 1904; it became an independent church in 1927 and a parish in 1954. The neoclassical gabled façade, marked by pilasters, is plain: a rectangular portal edged in lava stone with a window above. The interior is a single vaulted octagonal hall, with an apsed presbytery and a vestibule; the high altar, originally of inlaid wood, was remade in marble during the restoration of 1965, with a contribution from Michelangelo Virgillito.
The four side altars are dedicated to the Madonna delle Grazie, the Souls in Purgatory, the Holy Crucifix and Saint Anthony of Padua. The bell tower, on the right side, has two large and two small bells from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Visiting
Opening hours should be checked with the parish.
Our editors' tip
The wooden statue of Saint Anthony of Padua, on the first altar on the right, was brought here from the old Franciscan friary on the hill after its roof collapsed in 1904.
