Iglesia de Santa Catalina de Alessandria

It stands opposite the Quartiere degli Spagnoli on a site where, according to Perdichizzi, the church of S. Margherita (1622), formerly dedicated to S. Marta (14th century) and annexed to a hospital that would have housed S. Francesco di Paola, was located. Piaggia reports that during the siege of 1718 the building was demolished, so the present construction would date back to later years, perhaps preserving the original plan and disproving Ryolo's hypothesis about its possible Byzantine beginnings.

The present name was assumed in 1719 when the church of the same name that stood in the Borgo was destroyed during the Spanish siege. It has a bare gabled façade with an architraved door and a bell gable; on the side is a door with Baroque ornaments. The interior is a rectangular vaulted room with three niches on the back wall. In the central niche is the white marble statue of the martyr of Alexandria (1560); in the right apsidiole is the early 17th-century statue of St Gaetano, next to which is the wooden statue of St Anthony of Padua; in the left apsidiole is the statue of Ecce Homo. A small crypt extends underground.

In the central niche, decorated with eighteenth-century stuccoes, we find the marble statue of St Catherine, the work of Giuseppe Bottone (1560), a sculptor from Montorsoli's workshop who modelled himself on the statue of the saint sculpted in collaboration with Martino Montanini for Forza d'Agrò.