Church of San Teodoro in Petralia Soprana
The Church of San Teodoro in Petralia Soprana was built in 1066 by the will of Ruggero d 'Altavilla as a sign of gratitude to San Teodoro for the victory over the Saracens in the "Plan of the Battle", on November 9 of an unspecified year between 1062 and 1066. For this reason, as well as to the "Madonna della Vittoria", the church would have been dedicated to the saint celebrated on that day, that is, San Teodoro d'Amasea. Over time, the church has undergone various alterations and extensions.
The eighteenth-century façade is dominated by the bell tower , crowned with battlements. It is believed, as the plan of the building is set back from the square bell tower, that this was originally a turret of the town's fortifications. The façade has an eighteenth-century portal , with relief molding, surmounted by a tympanum with an elaborate niche, originally enclosing a sculptural group or a fresco.
Inside, traces of the original building remain. in the part of the sacristy, which was probably the body of the original church. Various constructive elements incorporated in more recent masonry can still be seen today, such as arches and columns with capitals of clear Romanesque style, which evoke the flower of the thistle. The quadrangular Norman chapel, to the right of the whole, has pointed arches and cross vaults with ribs that develop from the four corner capitals giving rise to an octagonal dome, which must have been rich in decorations of intense Byzantine-like color. The adjoining eighteenth-century church has a single nave, with a rectangular plan and houses an important sarcophagus which recalls, in the fantastic animals, the 12th century bell sculpture. This was found by chance during restoration work under a staircase that led to the lettorino for the organ and for the choir loft. It was discovered on that occasion that it was a cenotaph, as it did not contain any remains, and its bottom was connected to an underlying crypt, where a considerable quantity of skulls and human remains were found.
Inside the church There are also majolica from the mid-eighteenth century, paintings and frescoes from the seventeenth - nineteenth centuries of particular value.
Until the 1980s, in the external chapel of the east elevation, there was an ancient painting of the Madonna and Child, dating back to 1400. The work is a rare example of a painting on sandstone , and is perhaps the oldest existing in Petralia Soprana. It has been restored and is currently kept in the sacristy of S. Maria di Loreto.
