CASALVECCHIO SICULO

Casalvecchio Siculo is a town in Messina province, standing at 400m a.s.l. and counting about 1,700 inhabitants. It lies on an area of naturalistic interesting, being close at hand to the Messina Strait, and not too far from the Etna volcano, Calabria and the Agrò Creek Valley.

Some Arabian features are recognizable in the town heart. Since the 1100’s down through the 1700’s, it was included in the administrative territory of the neighboring Savoca.

The Chiesa Madre is particularly noteworthy. Dedicated to St. Onofrio, it retains a fine marble floor and wooden ceiling of a former building upon which the church was built, a fine holy-water font bearing the date of making – 1686 –, a 1600’s painting depicting the Adoration of the Magi and a 1600’s wooden bust of the Titular Saint. The rectory houses a little museum displaying a precious panel portraying San Nicolò in cattedra, a 1600’s canvas of the Gloria della Croce and another of the same epoch depicting the Whitsunday, and some silver plates.

A Norman church dedicated to Saints Peter and Paul is situated in the city environs near the Agrò river, attached to a Basilian monastery of the same epoch. A Greek inscription within the building reveals that the present structure results from a re-construction made in 1172. It has a fine frontage. Inside, it is divided into arcades, the central of which has two domes.