Militello in Val di Catania. Mother Church of San Nicolò and of the Santissimo Salvatore

The Matrix, dedicated to St. Nicholas and then in 1788 to the new patron saint. Salvatore, was built in 1721 based on a design by the architect Girolamo Palazzotto, with a tripartite elevation, slender on the high staircase. It was opened for worship in 1740 and in 1765 completed with the second order and the bell tower, designed by the architect Francesco Battaglia. The reinforced concrete dome was added in 1904, based on a project by the militellese Salvatore Sortino. The underground rooms house the San Nicolò Museum.
The cult of St. Nicholas
Equally ancient as that of Santa Maria a Militello is the cult of Greek-Byzantine origin of St. Nicholas of Myra. A church was dedicated to him, known as San Nicola il Vecchio, near the Castle, which was destroyed by the earthquake of 1693. The new Matrix was built in another point of the city and in a predominant position. Inside are preserved precious testimonies of the old Mother Church: the ancient seventeenth-century wooden machine that adorns the altar of San Nicolò, framing the altarpiece with the Preaching of Saint Nicolò, by Vito D’Anna (1763). The wooden statue of the Most Holy Savior, kept here, is the work of the Palermo sculptor Girolamo Bagnasco (1818) and is adorned with a fercolo with angels that support a crown, work of Ragusa's Corrado Leone (1842).