Chiesa di Santa Maria Alemanna

The church of Sant'Elia was built from 1694 after an earlier church was damaged by the Val di Noto earthquake of 1693. The cycle of frescoes culminating in the painting on the nave vault of St. Elijah on the Chariot of Fire and Elisha, painted in 1706 by Antonio Filocamo, was damaged in the southern Calabrian earthquake of 1783. However, the vault and the painting were restored during reconstruction and restoration campaigns. In the Messina earthquake of 1908, the church suffered limited damage consisting of the collapse of the ceiling near the top of the façade.

The present church of Santa Caterina di Valverde was built between 1926 and 1932, but there has been a church here since the Middle Ages. Since 1330, the history of this church has been linked to that of the monastery of Santa Maria Valverde, built around 1255. After the Val di Noto earthquake of 1693, the monastery became unusable and the structures of the Temple of Venus, on whose ruins it stood, collapsed. A new monastery and church dedicated to St Catherine of Alexandria was built, with a single nave and a semicircular apse. The 1783 earthquake in southern Calabria destroyed the church and most of the frescoes. This event led to a second reconstruction. After the Messina earthquake of 1908, the entire complex was demolished to allow for the new urban topographical division. The current reconstruction was carried out on a project by the architect Cesare Bazzani 1926-29. The new temple was opened for worship on 12 March 1932.

The construction of the Annunziata dei Catalani began in the second half of the 11th century (apse, transept, dome) and was completed at the beginning of the following century (façade and porches) after an earthquake. It seems that the builders of the church incorporated elements (columns) from an ancient temple of Neptune into its construction. The church has a typical plan of late Norman architecture in Sicily.