Messina - Chiesa della Santissima Annunziata dei Catalani

Messina, located at the southern entrance of the Strait of Messina, was in the 8th century B.C. founded by Greek colonists. After the First Punic War, it became Roman and after the fall of the Roman Empire, the city was successively ruled by the Goths from 476, then by the Byzantine Empire in 535, by the Arabs in 842, and in 1061 by the Norman brothers Robert Guiscard and Roger Guiscard, later known as Roger I of Sicily. In 1189 Richard I ("The Lionheart") stopped in Messina on his way to the Holy Land and briefly occupied the city after a dispute over the dowry of his sister, who was married to King William II of Sicily (= William the Good). . . Because a tectonic fault zone, the Messina Fault, runs through the Strait of Messina, earthquakes are common here. The city had to be rebuilt again and again. The Second World War brought further destruction to Messina.

The church dates from the 12th century when Sicily was under Norman rule. Built on top of the ruins of an older temple dedicated to Neptune, the church is an example of Sicilian Norman architecture with its mix of different cultural elements. The church displays influences from Arab and Byzantine architecture and also contains Roman elements. In the first half of the 14th century under Louis III of Anjou (aka "Louis III of Aragon") the building was declared a royal chapel.

It is one of the few structures to have survived the catastrophic earthquake in 1908 which destroyed most of Messina. As a result of the earthquake, the church is situated 3 meters below the reconstructed street level.

Towards the end of the 15th century, with the unification of the Kingdom of Sicily under the unified crown of Spain, the church became the seat of the "Brotherhood of Catalan Merchants", from which it took its current name.

The merchants, nobles, and knights gathered in brotherhood commissioned the construction of a crypt for the burial of the confreres.


I have already uploaded a lot of photos previously taken in Sicily. Now I will add only a few. If you want to see more, follow this link:Some buildings were erected in the Art Nouveau style after the 1908 earthquake.

www.ipernity.com/doc/323415/album/1238300