Introduction to Val di Noto

Religious architecture

For religious buildings, the architecture of the Baroque period sought to become a guiding principle for a journey of faith through the very form of the construction and its ornaments.
The façade features the characteristic elements of the sacred building and reveals its symbolic contents in its sculptural decorations, allegories of saints, votive scrolls and dedications, kept within the rigid geometric and compositional rules typical of the architecture of this period.
The sculptural and “moved” façades lead to an interior that is rich and exciting due to the triumph of colour, stuccoes and decorations that captivate worshippers, rousing wonder and amazement, right up to the crowning moment in the vault with the mystical sight of the triumph of the Saints.

The Staircase of Angels

Madonna of the Militia: a singular warrior virgin

Altars, saints and sculptural works

Luminous sacred spaces

The interior of the church: space and colour

The senses tell about Palazzo Zacco

San Domenico and Gagliardi’s work

The smallest Greek theatre in the world

The neo-Gothic seminary chapel: symbols, light and space

The senses tell about Palazzo Ducezio

Expansion, spatiality and light in the church of San Domenico

The Badia di Sant’Agata (St. Agatha’s Abbey)

Garden of Novices and the restorations by Giancarlo De Carlo

The church of San Nicolò l’Arena: the majesty of an unfinished beauty

The eagle-shaped city

The Duomo di San Giorgio (Cathedral of St. George)

The Monastery of the Benedictine nuns

The casket of austerity under the great dome

Palazzo Trigona: a building with a complex shape

The senses tell the Cathedral of San Giorgio

The articulated interior spaces

The interiors: diffused light and Byzantine relics

Baroque creativity: recurring themes

The church and the college

The senses tell the story of the Church of San Paolo

A new site for the church of San Giorgio

Religious architecture

The interior and works of art

The senses tell the Cathedral of San Giorgio

The Church of St. Francis

The works in the church

The senses tell the story of the Church of Santa Maria del Monte

The Antonino Uccello Birthplace Museum

The senses tell the story of the Church of San Benedetto

Rebirth and urban planning of the city of Noto

The new roads of the city

A heritage of votive works

Majestic exteriors, grandiose interiors

The senses tell of Palazzo della Cancelleria

Palazzo Trigona di Canicarao

The Infiorata of Noto, a modern tradition

The senses tell about Palazzo Beneventano

Reconstruction after the earthquake

The triumph of Baroque: expansion of spaces

The beginning of an authentic Baroque conception

City and nature

The senses tell the Cathedral of Sant’Agata

Barresi-Branciforte: the lords of the fiefdom and the modernisation of the town

Palazzo della Cancelleria: from former stable to the Nicastro family

The Benedictines’ library

Akrai and Syracuse: an unbreakable bond

The senses tell the Church of San Michele

The senses tell the Church of San Domenico

Scenography and devotion for St. Agatha

One city, three sites

The Church of St. Julian on Via dei Crociferi

Art in the cathedral

The art of maiolica

From the end of the world to rebirth from the rubble

The city palace

The senses tell the story of the Church of San Giuliano ai Crociferi

The Palazzo dei due mori

The city of Modica, a balance between nature and urbanism

The senses tell the story of the Sanctuary Church of Santa Maria della Stella

Fountain of the Nymph Zizza: public water in the town

The Monte delle Prestanze in the new city layout

The senses tell about Palazzo Trigona

Views denied, views conquered: the power of the devout Benedictines

The city within the city

The freedom of worship and the Catholic Church’s role in the diffusion of Baroque

The Church of St. John the Evangelist

Scenography, lights and colours of the cathedral

The Church of St. Benedict

A story of rebirth

Piazza Duomo, the elephant fountain, the heart of the city

A stone garden

The senses tell of the Cathedral of San Pietro

The Church of St. Mary of the Mountain

Palazzo Zacco, a balance between sobriety and decoration

A casket of precious works

Unusual iconographies: the Burgos crucifix

Expanded spaces, stucco and colourful lights

The Madonna dei Conadomini and the art of devotion

Verticality and dynamism of the façade of the Church of San Carlo

A compromise between Neoclassicism and Baroque

The senses tell the story of the Church of the Badia di Sant’Agata

The Franciscan convent

The Church of Madonna della Stella

The two churches

The expansion of space and changing reality

A unifying project for the city of Catania

The Church of St. Paul

The palace, the town, the church

Baroque and the loss of balance in the 16th century

The dynamics of the Church of San Michele

The senses tell the story of the Church of San Giovanni Evangelista

The church and the monastery

The senses tell the Benedictine Monastery and the Church of San Nicolò l’Arena

The senses tell the story of the Church of San Carlo and the former Jesuit college

Geometry and wonder in civic architecture in the Baroque of the Val di Noto

The illusion of light and the decorative splendour

A Nobel Prize in Modica

Militello: The story of an enlightened fiefdom

Virtuosity, decorations and altars

Scicli, the city of Baroque scenery

St. Agatha and the candelore