Church of Santa Maria delle Scale in Ragusa
The Church of Santa Maria delle Scale di Ragusa is one of the baroque buildings of the city.
According to a local tradition, in the place where the church stands today there was probably a small shrine dedicated to the Madonna. Subsequently, a hospice was built in that same place which was called the hospice of the Cataracts, because it overlooks the steep slope overlooking the Valle del Gonfalone. The hospice was entrusted to the Cistercian friars and welcomed the Madonna taken from the pre-existing aedicule. Subsequently, in the fourteenth century, the hospice was transformed into the Church of Santa Maria delle Cataratte. After the earthquake of 1693, following the serious damage suffered by the structure, the church was restored and enlarged. During this reconstruction the orientation of the church was rotated: the primitive apses were transformed into the current portals of the right aisle and related rooms. Of the original central entrance remains the left part of the portal, walled into an external wall to the right of the entrance on the left aisle
. From the central nave it is possible to see four portals that overlook the central nave of the ancient church: the first portal, to the right of the entrance, rests on two finely carved columns that rise to form a pointed arch in Gothic style; the second portal has a pointed arch in Gothic style surmounted by a figure of the Madonna and Child; the third portal, rebuilt in the 16th century, has the lower part with Gothic-style columns and the upper one with Renaissance-style flowers. In the altar corresponding to the third altar, a valuable terracotta work from 1538 is visible, representing The Transit of the Virgin , where the Madonna who gives her soul back to God is surrounded by the Apostles; the fourth portal has a bundle of small columns that rise up to form a pointed arch in the Gothic style.
