The basilica of San Sebastiano, also called the Duomo of Barcellona Pozzo di Gotto, stands in piazza Duomo with its façade on via Roma. It is the largest church in the town and, in the province, second only to Messina Cathedral; Pope John Paul II raised it to a minor basilica. The cult of Saint Sebastian, protector against plague, took hold in the village of Barcellona around 1500, replacing the older patron Saint Nicholas. A church of the saint is recorded in 1592, and the old duomo was built between 1595 and 1606.
What to see
After Barcellona and Pozzo di Gotto were merged in 1836 a larger church was needed, and the 1908 earthquake made the old duomo unusable; it was demolished together with the church of the Agonizzanti and other buildings to open via Roma towards the station. The new church was built between 1932 and 1935 under the engineer Francesco Barbaro, with the Fratelli Cardillo firm that had worked on the Shrine of Christ the King in Messina, and was inaugurated in 1936. The façade recalls Sant'Andrea della Valle in Rome and the dome is inspired by Juvarra's at Superga; the niches hold Saints Peter, Paul, Francis of Assisi and Catherine of Siena by Domenico Farina.
The interior is a Latin cross with three naves, the central one 25 metres long, 16 wide and 23 high. Many altars come from the old duomo: that of Our Lady of the Dying with Filippo Jannelli's altarpiece, that of Saint Joseph and that of Our Lady of Graces, the town's patron. In the transept is the eighteenth-century wooden statue of Saint Sebastian carried in procession, with a seventeenth-century painting of the life of Saint Christopher and a Madonna and Child with Saint Francis by Gaspare Camarda from 1606.
Visiting
On the entrance wall Gino Colapietro frescoed the Creation, Original Sin, the Tablets of the Law and the Baptism in the Jordan in 1997. Mass times and opening hours should be checked with the parish.
Our editors' tip
In the north transept look at the Miraculous Draught of Fishes frescoed by Colapietro in 1994: the faces of the figures are those of people from Barcellona, and among them you can make out the archpriest of the time.
