Cathedral of San Gregorio Magno in Vizzini
The Cathedral of San Gregorio Magno in Vizzini is the main religious building of the village.
The date of construction is not known but it is believed that the church was built on the ancient jury house and on the ruins of the ancient Benedictine convent.
Of particular value is the side façade of the building which corresponds to the ancient façade of the jury house. On the wall you can see pointed arches surmounting the windows and four pieces of carving sculpted in the shape of arms and hands where, according to tradition, flags were placed to indicate to the people holidays, meetings and other civic functions. Of particular value is the Gothic style portal incorporated into the side elevation above a two-branch staircase. Above it the sixteenth-century inscription is still visible: Mother Church under the title of S. Gregorio Magno Patron of Q. a Ob. City of Vizzini - 1539. On the sides of the portal there are two double columns placed one on top of the other: the first chiseled, smaller in size, with a various design; the second posterior, semicircular, smoothed into a cone.
The main facade is in late Baroque style. It is divided into two orders by a string course frame. The first order is marked by the presence of four pilasters with high bases and Corinthian capitals. In the center there is the main portal decorated with columns with Corinthian style capitals, while on the sides there are two small windows decorated with artistic frames. The second order is marked by a pair of pilasters, a broken gable that concludes the construction, and has two volutes that connect the lateral parts with the central one. In the center there is a large window adorned with four small columns with capitals that support a broken arched tympanum.
The bell tower, which stands in the rear part of the side facade, is a massive tower divided into two orders: on the first order there are a large clock and a papal coat of arms; on the second, the belfry with large full-arch windows, decorated with other coats of arms and four pilasters with capitals, which support the terminal spire, with a lowered bulb.
The interior, divided into three naves, features valuable decorated chapels: the chapel of the Sacrament which has two advanced double columns, one of which is grooved, with a branch of ivy twisted along its entire length, and the other with artistic golden friezes; and on the windowsill a woven gate, a work from the mid-15th century. of notable artistic value; the chapel of Gesù alla colonna, rich in golden friezes in relief, where the wooden statue of Christ is kept; the chapel of S. Biagio adorned with an inlaid marble altarpiece from the 1600s, which houses, in a niche, a plaster statue of the saint and a marble sarcophagus from 1803.
The church houses works of notable artistic value: a ancient Baptistery, located within a portal of worked white stone; the paintings of the martyrdom of S. Lorenzo and the Madonna della Mercede by Filippo Paladino (1544-1614), the painting of S. Gregorio with Teodolinda, a seventeenth-century work; the canvas depicting St. Gregory kneeling, during the plague of Rome, by an unknown artist; the seventeenth-century wooden statue of St. Catherine; the wooden statue of St. Silvia, mother of St. Gregory the Great, sculpted in Ortisei in 1893; a 14th century triptych, of notable historical-artistic importance; the pulpit and the eighteenth-century choir with the sculpted and gilded pipe organ; the stoups in dark veined marble.
