Cattedrale di Messina

241 BC, Sicily was conquered by the Romans who replaced the Greeks by making Zeus, Jupiter, and so on for the other gods of Olympus. For Catone the Censor the island was “the granary of Rome“. Sicily alone exported about 3 million quintals per year to the capital. Even today, especially the center of the island, is an endless expanse of grain, as if it were sea, which makes it particularly characteristic landscape: deep green in winter and spring, and blinding yellow in the summer months.

The Cathedral of Messina is located in Piazza Duomo and stands on the site where initially was built a Christian temple by Belisarius, in 530. In Islamic times was probably transformed into a mosque and then resume the function of Christian church in the twelfth century. Beautiful the prospectus with the soaring clock tower, a series of mullioned windows with three lights and a wonderful portal of the beginning of 1400. The central nave, inside, has wooden trusses.

(photo)Messina, cathedral, interior view of the crypt, 1835