Mother Church in Motta Sant'Anastasia
The Mother Church of Motta Sant'Anastasia, dedicated to Our Lady of the Rosary, is the main place of worship in the village. It stands in the highest and oldest part of the village, near the Tower.
It was built in the 13th century and at the time had a central plan structure, according to the canons of the typical Byzantine liturgy. Following the expansions carried out in the 15th and 16th centuries, it took on a Latin cross structure. In the 18th century the bell tower was added.
The convex and symmetrical façade has a central entrance door and, on the second order, which remained unfinished, an aligned oval window. To the left of the body of the building stands the mighty bell tower on a sloped base in lava stone. In the upper part of the bell tower, two martille of the old mechanical clock which no longer exists are visible. The bell is engraved with a Latin epigraph which commemorates its relocation in 1835.
The interior, in the shape of a Latin cross, is dominated by two median domes between the entrance and apse.
The church houses works of considerable value artistic and historical: the altarpiece, the canvas of the Madonna del Rosario and the canvas of the Madonna del Carmelo belonging to the school of Antonello da Messina; a sixteenth-century crucifix; the papier-mâché simulacrum of St. Joseph, of extremely fine workmanship.
