The patron saint of Villafranca Tirrena is Saint Nicholas of Bari, celebrated on 6 December. The mother church dedicated to him was built in the 19th century, probably over the remains of an earlier religious building: inside are a 16th-century painted cross attributed to Mariano Riccio, a Madonna and Child from the Calamecca workshop, and two wooden sculptures, one of the Madonna di Portosalvo and the other of Saint Nicholas of Bari, made in 1859 by Mollica of Messina.
The church of San Nicolò and the square in front of it have for centuries been the setting for the old Villafranca tradition of the «Bamparizzu», renewed on 5 December, the eve of the patron's feast: in the afternoon, boys dressed as fishermen begin dragging a boat decorated with flowers and old lanterns barefoot, sliding it on the typical wooden skids through the town's streets, from the harbour to Piazza Castello, as a sign of good fortune and in the saint's honour; the event culminates with a great bonfire lit right in front of the church. The town, formed in 1929 by the merger of the municipalities of Bauso, Calvaruso and Saponara-Villafranca, still preserves the castle of Bauso, enriched by the Pettini family with marble reliefs, busts of ancestors and an Italian-style garden with artificial waterfalls dedicated to the three canticles of the Divine Comedy.
