Construction of the Old Cathedral began in 1607 on the esplanade of the walled Città Murata, at the foot of the castle that once controlled Milazzo — and that spot inside the fortress shaped the whole building. The dome was redesigned as work went on and left without a drum visible from outside, kept deliberately low so it would not stand in the way of cannon fire from the fortifications above. The design is attributed to Camillo Camilliani, with the architect Giuseppe Gasdia directing the works; the church was consecrated in 1616, before it was even finished.
What to see
The main front faces north and shows the Greek-cross plan at a glance: a projecting central atrium and two side entrances set into the shorter arms. Pairs of coupled pilasters in dressed stone divide the facade into two orders, closed off by a heavily moulded cornice. On the lower order, Corinthian capitals frame an arched marble doorway in alternating colours; above, a rectangular window sits between two blind oculi that once held a zodiac and a sundial. The centrepiece is a Renaissance-school portal, where two Ionic columns carry a double broken pediment and a small aedicule frames a Renaissance “Madonna and Child,” with putti and angels along the mouldings. Inside, a broad square hall is divided by massive arches on Corinthian piers, with four corner chapels and their inlaid marble altars. The dome, painted in segments over a trompe-l'œil drum, keeps stuccowork and frescoes of Saints Leo II, Demetrius, Nicholas and Papinus. In the left aisle, the monumental altar of Saint Stephen the Protomartyr — with Carrara marble angels and an oval showing three stacked crowns for the civic, feudal and church orders — is the richest work; since 2018 the chapel of Saint Nicholas has held a copy of the “Saint Nicholas Enthroned” attributed to Antonio Giuffré.
Visiting
The church was deconsecrated in 1860 after the damage it took during the clashes between Garibaldi's men and Bourbon troops on 20 July, and it stood abandoned for a long time before its restoration at the end of the twentieth century. The apse, laid out as a Latin cross, is now completely bare: the inlaid high altar was moved to the church of San Giacomo Apostolo. The sacristy rooms serve as a small museum, while beneath the choir and the high altar lies the Oratory of the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament, an aristocratic society founded in 1580 by Carlo Rigoles, with a solid walnut choir carved and inlaid by hand.
Our editors' tip
Look up at the second order of the facade: the oculi that are blind today once carried a zodiac and a sundial, and higher still you can make out where the bell chamber stood before it fell in the Messina earthquake of the early 1900s. To see the original inlaid altar, you will need to walk over to the nearby church of San Giacomo Apostolo, where it now stands.