A Greek inscription runs along the lintel of the doorway and dates the work to the year 6680: in the Byzantine reckoning, which places the beginning of the world 5508 years before Christ, that is 1172. Beside it stands the name of the man who ran the site, Gherardo il Franco. The building, though, had been standing for half a century already: it went up in 1117, after the Basilian monk Gerasimo obtained from Roger II the men and the means to refound the monastery 'in fluvio Agrilea'. The deed of gift, written in Greek and dated 1116, survives in Codex Vaticanus 8201 and was translated into Latin by Costantino Lascaris in 1478. The earthquake of 1169 must have damaged the church badly; from the repairs that followed it has come down to us almost untouched, while only a few stones remain of the monastery. In 1794 the abbey seat moved to Messina, the church was abandoned and for decades served as a store for farm tools; it was expropriated from its private owners in 1888 and stripped of its Baroque additions by Francesco Valenti's restoration in 1914.
What to see
From outside it looks like a fortress, which it never was: the battlements with their rounded merlons are decoration, and the apse faces east as the rule requires. What stays with you is the colour of the walls, brick alternating with dark lava stone, with stretches laid in herringbone, the opus spicatum of Norman builders. The entrance porch is set between two stair towers, the same arrangement as the cathedrals of Cefalù and Monreale, and the arch band works in three tones: pale stone, dark stone, brick.
Inside, the church measures 20 metres long by 11 wide and stands 17 high: small, yet startlingly vertical. The three Norman aisles are divided into three square bays of Byzantine tradition; each group of four supports carries pointed arches, joined to the walls by muqarnas niches of Islamic derivation that turn the square into an octagon and hold up the drum. Two domes rise on the central axis, one over the nave, one over the choir. A cross of Byzantine type is carved into the lunette above the door.
Visiting
The church is not in the village: it stands in the hamlet of San Pietro, down in the Agrò valley below Casalvecchio Siculo. You come up from the Ionian coast, leaving the road at Santa Teresa di Riva or passing through Sant'Alessio Siculo and following the riverbed inland: some ten kilometres of narrow, twisting road, a good quarter of an hour at the wheel. Parking is at the roadside just above the building. Half an hour is enough inside, but opening is not continuous: ask in the village or at the town hall before driving up, so as not to make the trip for nothing.
Our editors' tip
We would go in the late afternoon: with the apse to the east, the front faces west, and raking light brings out every course of brick and lava that midday flattens. Afterwards drive up to Forza d'Agrò on the ridge opposite: this was the Vicum Agrillae, the village Roger II handed over outright to the monks, its people bound to bring two hens to the abbey at Christmas and at Easter, on top of the tithe on goats and pigs.