Church of Santa Maria Maggiore
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The parish church of Santa Maria Maggiore according to the Piaggia was founded in 1621: originally it was dedicated to Sant’Elmo, replacing the little church demolished to build the fort Sant’Elmo, but in 1623 it was dedicated to Jesus and Mary. In 1662 it became a parish. The current title distinguishes the church from that of Jesus and Mary founded by San Francesco di Paola and now named after him.

Extensive works were carried out by 1762, the year in which Scipio Manni signed the cycle of frescoes that probably completed the new rococo arrangement of the interior. Important works were also carried out in the nineteenth century when the current facade, already existing in 1860, was built; at the same time date the collegiate and the bell tower, truncated after the earthquake of 1908. The construction is therefore the result of dissonant interventions, rococo in the neoclassical interiors outside, on the original structure of which it is no longer possible to grasp the characters.

It is clear instead the relationship with the church of San Giacomo that faces it: the two churches had to close monumentally the most central part of the marina, originally marked by modest buildings on uniform plots. The church has a single nave with semicircular apse. The entrance is from a large semi-circular churchyard: the facade is of one order, just animated by crushed Doric walls on a high smooth base, overlaid by a heavy triangular attic. The door is of simple design and without pretense results the window, however reworked at the beginning of the century. Cantons covered with bugnato serrano facade and bell tower, now reduced to only the base after the demolition of the nut that housed the clock and the high bell cell above.

The design of the prospectus is taken over, in simplified forms, from the link that develops on the right side with a central body between crossed cantons (enclosing the entrance door) and lateral bodies also defined by crossed cantons. Three orders of simple openings open in the collegiate, whose crowning is provided with a wide horizontal frame connected to the attic of the church. On the sides of the door two epigraphs recall the well-known episode of Garibaldi’s rest on the threshold of the church. The interior is characterized by an important stucco decoration with angels and floral motifs, typically rococo, which frames the niche altars, separated by parapets, and the frescoes of Manni in the vaults.

The pictorial cycle of Manni, certainly executed with the help of the workshop, depicts evangelical and biblical episodes: at the center of the vault is the largest quadrone (held by a group of angels) with the expulsion of the mercenaries from the Temple while in the apsidal catino has been recalled the presentation of Jesus at the Temple: box minor depict biblical characters (blind Abraham, David). Particularly successful is the complex floral decoration that frames the frescoed panels, typical example of the advanced rococo taste. A group of angels in stucco holds a coat of arms that adorns the triumphal arch. Putti and festoni decorate the windows that open in the nave above the altars. All the altars were decorated with modest polychrome marble in the nineteenth century while the paintings depicting the Crucifix, the Trinity, the Immaculate with saints and the child Jesus with saints date back to the eighteenth century.

The neo-classical high altar, built in the nineteenth century, is adorned by the eighteenth-century painting of Our Lady of Snow flanked by the paintings of the Nativity and the adoration of the Magi. The nineteenth-century interventions, in sober neoclassical style, can also be attributed to the choir and the wooden pergamon surmounted by a polychrome angel. At the same time date the altar of Sant’Espedito with polychrome statue of the saint and the funerary monuments Greco Picciolo of 1869 and Calcagno Cumbo of 1880. The baptismal font consists of a well-shaped basin resting on a column with leaves, heterogeneous elements dating respectively to the Baroque period and the Romantic nineteenth century.

Devotional testimonies consist of the statue of the Sorrowful Mother, placed in a window, and the statuette of the child Jesus. In the floor, recently redone, there are only two inscriptions with coat of arms and an anepigraph plate with coat of arms. The numerous funerary inscriptions now lost are known thanks to Piaggia. In the premises of the sacristy is preserved only a beautiful stone fountain niche, surmounted by a cartouche with the date 1742.

Chillemi F. Milazzo città d’arte. Disegno urbano e patrimonio architettonico, Messina 1999.