Cathedral of Termini Imerese
The Cathedral of Termini Imerese, also known as the matrix of San Nicola di Bari, stands in the Piazza del Duomo and is the largest of the city's churches.
It is not known the primitive site of the cathedral of Termini Imerese in the first millennium of the Christian era. The first historical news regarding the existence of a sacred building dedicated to Santa Maria La Nova under the title of San Nicolò dates back to the mid-1400s. In 1604 Antonio Spadafora was entrusted with the task of drawing up the project for the new cathedral. Only in 1912 was the project completed with the creation of the prospectus.
The facade has three doors enriched by majestic portals and columns in composite style. On the central portal is the marble group depicting the Blessed Agostino Novello with angels, by Filippo Sgarlata from 1925. In the side niches of the facade there are four statues: San Giovanni Battista, San Pietro Apostolo, San Paolo Apostolo and San Giacomo Maggiore, copies of the elements of the marble retable by Giuliano Mancino and Bartolomeo Berrettaro. The originals are kept inside the church and come from the primitive church of Santa Maria la Nova.
The interior has a Latin cross plan and is divided into three naves with side chapels dedicated to the saints. The vast internal spaces, conceived according to the light, are characterized by the rhythm of the large centric arches which develop from the central colonnade into the curvature of the vault and continue with the impost of the transept and the concavity of the apse.
All' Inside the church there are numerous paintings and works of art of particular artistic value: the seventeenth-century altar covered with fine polychrome inlaid marble dedicated to the Immaculate Conception and located in the chapel of Santa Maria la Nova; the wooden cross, painted on both sides by Pietro Ruzzolone in 1484, depicting Jesus Christ dead on the Cross and the Risen Lord.
The church of San Nicola di Bari houses the Museum of Sacred Art of Termini Imerese.
