The patroness of Ficarra is Our Lady of the Annunciation, celebrated on 25 March. The Sanctuary of the Annunziata is the town's mother church, built in the 15th century: it houses the statue of the Annunziata, probably the work of Antonello Gagini, and also holds a detail of the polyptych by Antonello da Messina depicting Christ.
The birth of Ficarra mixes history and legend: according to Diodorus Siculus it was the Phoenicians who founded Pallisa, whose name would derive from the goddess Pallas, the first village in the territory of the present-day municipality, while the Sicilian Greeks are thought to have rebuilt the settlement on a hill today called Strummuli. The town's historic territory is divided over three hills, topped respectively by the convent, the mother church and the prison fortress: the Convent of the Friars Minor Observant of Saint Francis dates from 1522, was used as a library and, having fallen into ruin, was abandoned in 1885, while a round arch of its cloister still stands intact.
