Church of San Michele in Acireale
The Church of San Michele Arcangelo in Acireale is a valuable building of worship in neoclassical style.
It is known that, before the year 1500, in this same place there existed a chapel dedicated to San Michele Arcangelo, commissioned by the Gambino family or Gambini. In 1540 a church dedicated to the Saint was built, in 1571 it was elevated to a Sacramental Church. The earthquake of 1693 destroyed the ancient factory. At the beginning of the 18th century, the rebuilding of the current church began in its current form.
The façade, built after 1791 based on a design by the architect Stefano Ittar, is in neoclassical style and has a columned pronaos delimited by a wrought iron fence and a triangular-shaped tympanum. On the upper part of the façade there are three statues, depicting the three Holy Archangels, designed by the Acese painter Michele Vecchio and executed by the sculptor Giuseppe Orlando.
The interior, with an elliptical plan, has an oval dome of considerable size without the at the top because, following the earthquake of 1818, the lantern collapsed.
Among the works kept in the church, the following are valuable: the baptismal font dating back to the beginning of the 17th century closed by an artistic wrought iron fence; the pipe organ, in sculpted and carved gilded wood, in neo-Gothic style, dating back to the second half of the 19th century; the statue of San Michele, the work of an anonymous sculptor from Messina who took refuge in Acireale during his city's revolt of 1671-79; the canvas of the Madonna del Carmelo and the Glory of the Saints painted in the second half of the 19th century by the brothers Giuseppe and Francesco Vaccaro, and the canvas with the same title, a 17th century work by Giacinto Platania from Aci, kept in the rectory.
