Messina Cathedral is the city's cathedral, dedicated to Santa Maria Assunta: a large church of Norman origin, built in stone and banded colored marble, facing Piazza del Duomo next to its bell tower with the astronomical clock.
What you...
The Fountain of Orion is the large marble fountain in Piazza del Duomo, in Messina, carved in the mid-16th century by Giovanni Angelo Montorsoli, a collaborator of Michelangelo. The art historian Bernard Berenson called it "the most beautiful...
The Fort of the Santissimo Salvatore, with the stele of the Madonna della Lettera, guards the entrance to Messina's harbor on the tip of the San Raineri peninsula, the "sickle" that embraces the port. The gilded Madonna on top of the column is...
The Fountain of Neptune is the monumental fountain in Piazza Unità d'Italia, in Messina, in front of the Prefecture and a stone's throw from the sea. The sea god, in marble, towers over the monsters of the Strait, Scylla and Charybdis, chained at...
The Church of the Santissima Annunziata dei Catalani is a small medieval church in the center of Messina, between Via Garibaldi and Via Cesare Battisti, and one of the oldest buildings in the city. In a compact space it blends Byzantine, Arab,...
The Sanctuary of the Madonna di Montalto is the church on Caperrina hill, above the center of Messina, with its facade facing the sea between two pointed bell towers. People come up here for the legend of its founding and for the view over the...
The Church of Santa Maria Alemanna is the church of the Teutonic Knights in Messina, on Via Sant'Elia: a rare example of pure Gothic in Sicily, built in the 13th century by German craftsmen. Today it is deconsecrated and hosts exhibitions and...
The Monumental Cemetery of Messina, the Gran Camposanto, is one of Europe's great monumental cemeteries: 22 hectares of avenues, gardens and tombs opposite Villa Dante, near the center. It was conceived from the start as a park, and you visit it...
The Regional Museum of Messina, named after Maria Accascina and known as MuMe, tells the story of eight centuries of the city's art, from the 12th to the 18th century. It stands on Viale della Libertà and holds two large canvases by...
The Sacrario di Cristo Re is the large domed church that overlooks Messina from a hill above the center, on Viale Principe Umberto. It holds the fallen of the two world wars, and from the lookout in front you can take in the city and the Strait...
Palazzo Zanca is Messina's town hall, a large neoclassical building of about 12,000 square meters between Piazza Unione Europea and Corso Cavour. Beneath its offices, in the Antiquarium, it holds the remains of the Roman and medieval...
The Monument to Don John of Austria is the bronze statue in Piazza Catalani, in Messina, at the end of Via Cesare Battisti. It celebrates the victor of the Battle of Lepanto, who set out from Messina itself with the Christian fleet.
It was...
The Fontana Senatoria is the marble fountain beside Palazzo Zanca, Messina's town hall, in front of the porticoed entrance on Via Consolato del Mare. It was commissioned by the city Senate in the early 17th century, and it still bears the names...
The Fontana Falconieri is the 19th-century fountain in Piazza Basicò, in Messina's historic center, near the Monte di Pietà and the sanctuary of Montalto. Elegant and a little exotic, it combines marble in the Tuscan Renaissance style with...
The Quattro Fontane of Messina are Baroque marble fountains set against the corners of the buildings at the crossroads of Via I Settembre and Via Cardines, in the city center. Of the four originals, two are still in place; the other two are at...
The Fontana di Gennaro, whose real name is the Fountain of Aquarius, is a marble fountain from 1602 at the start of Corso Cavour, in the center of Messina. A young Aquarius sits on a globe surrounded by the signs of the zodiac.
On an...
The Pietro Castelli Botanical Garden is the scientific garden of the University of Messina, a hectare of green on Piazza XX Settembre, right in the city centre. Founded in 1638, it is a quiet oasis where trees from half the world grow alongside...
The Church of San Giovanni di Malta, next to the Prefecture building in the centre of Messina, is what remains of a great church of the Knights of Malta. Today it is a small treasure chest: it holds the relics of Saint Placidus, the city's...
Palazzo Calapaj-d'Alcontres is an 18th-century noble residence on Via San Giacomo, a stone's throw from Messina Cathedral. It is worth a stop because it is one of the very few palaces to survive the 1908 earthquake and the demolitions that...
The Badiazza, the church of Santa Maria della Valle, is a medieval abbey crenellated like a castle, in the bed of a seasonal torrent at the foot of the San Rizzo hills, just outside Messina. Standing alone on the old road across the Peloritani...
The Statue of Grateful Messina is a white marble female figure personifying the city, in the small Piazzetta Giacomo Minutoli, facing the port with the bulk of the City Hall behind it. It is one of the first monuments you meet when you step off a...
The Statue of the Immaculate, known to locals as the “Marble Immaculate”, is a Baroque spire about 14 metres high on the north side of Messina Cathedral, behind the bell tower. Carved in white marble in 1757, it is the centrepiece of the Feast of...
The Statue of Charles III of Bourbon is a 19th-century monument in Piazza Cavallotti, on Via Primo Settembre, in front of the Chamber of Commerce building in Messina. It commemorates the king who in 1735 spent about two months in the city before...
The Fontana della Pigna is an 18th-century white marble fountain in Largo Seguenza, beside Viale Boccetta, in Messina. It takes its name from the large pine cone that crowns it, and it is one of the historic fountains that survived the 1908...
Villa Giuseppe Mazzini is the public garden in the centre of Messina, between the Prefecture, the church of San Giovanni di Malta, Viale Boccetta and Via Garibaldi. Born as “La Flora”, it is one of the places locals love most for their free...
The Passeggiata a Mare is the pedestrian seafront in the centre of Messina, along the port between Viale Boccetta and Viale Giostra. It is the place for a stroll with views over the Strait, the port and the votive column of the Madonna della...
The Co-cathedral of the Most Holy Saviour is Messina's second cathedral, a 20th-century church that preserves a very ancient title: that of the Archimandrite, the institution that for centuries led the Greek-rite monasteries of Sicily and...
The Basilica-Shrine of Saint Anthony of Padua, on Via Santa Cecilia, is the city's great shrine to Saint Anthony, tied to Saint Hannibal Mary Di Francia, the priest of the poor and of orphans. Opened in 1926, it was the first masonry church built...
The Church of San Francesco all'Immacolata, on Viale Boccetta in Messina, is a large Gothic church founded in 1254, the first of the Franciscan order in Sicily. In size it is the city's second church after the cathedral: a medieval church that...
It has a Greek cross plan and it is better known as Carmelo church. Finished in 1931, it was committed to Carmelites that in Messina boast their presence for centuries. It has the 18th century style typical of the pre–earthquake period of 1908....
The Cast-Iron Fountain (Fontana in Ghisa) is a late-19th-century fountain on Viale della Libertà in Messina, in front of the side entrance of the former Fair: all that is left of the furnishings of the old seaside garden, the Chalet dedicated to...
The Church of San Tommaso il Vecchio is a small Sicilian-Norman church on Via Romagnosi, just behind Corso Cavour in the center of Messina: an important Norman landmark with Byzantine features, declared a national monument.
On the outside...
The Galleria Vittorio Emanuele III is a covered arcade in the heart of Messina, between Corso Cavour and Piazza Antonello: an Art Nouveau and Art Deco passage with a glass dome, born in the city rebuilt after the 1908 earthquake and now full of...
Palazzo Cerruti - Bisazza is an eclectic Art Nouveau building in the historic center of Messina, on Via Lepanto at the corner of Via Cesare Battisti and Via I Settembre, and it forms the backdrop to the square of the Church of the...
The Archbishop's Palace (Palazzo Arcivescovile) is the seat of the Archbishop of Messina, at the corner of Via Garibaldi and Via I Settembre, about a hundred meters from the cathedral: a 1924 building on the site of the old bishop's residence,...
The Palace of Justice, known as Palazzo Piacentini after its architect, is Messina's courthouse, on Piazza Maurolico across from the University: a golden neoclassical temple crowned by a bronze quadriga.
At the top stands the quadriga...
The Palazzo del Governo is the seat of Messina's Prefecture, on Piazza Unità d'Italia across from the seafront promenade: a large Art Nouveau palace built around a courtyard, with an 80-meter facade facing the Fountain of Neptune.
The...
Palazzo dei Leoni, or Palazzo della Provincia, is the seat of the Metropolitan City of Messina, between Corso Cavour and Piazza Antonello: one of the most interesting public buildings of the rebuilding, with its portico on the square.
The...
The Church of Santa Maria di Mili is a Norman church with a former Basilian monastery, on the bank of the Mili stream near Mili San Pietro, about 10 kilometers from the center of Messina: one of the oldest surviving Norman buildings in...
The Monument to the Masotto Sicilian Battery is a bronze group on Messina's seafront promenade: three larger-than-life artillerymen, in a battle scene, honor the Sicilian soldiers who fell at Adwa, fighting the Ethiopian army, on March 1,...