The Church of Santa Maria del Carmelo

Audioguide created in collaboration with the students of "A. Gussio" scuola secondaria di primo grado Sant'Alessio Siculo.

Narrated by Tommaso Silvio.

The Church of Santa Maria del Carmelo: a church within a church.

Among the various peculiarities of Sant'Alessio, there is a church that can be found inside another church: the church consecrated to Madonna del Carmelo, in fact, it's located inside the Church of San Nicola dei Greci.

The church was certainly a suffragan of the Basilian Monastery of Saints Peter and Paul of Agrò, which is located in the nearby Casalvecchio Siculo and of which the monk Gerasimo was part of and, after its reconstruction, became its first abbot.

It is probably here, in Scala Sancte Alexii, that in 1116 the meeting between Ruggero II and abbot Gerasimo took place. The result of the meeting was the commitment of the Norman count to finance the reconstruction of the monastery of Peter and Paul of Agrò.

Stefano Bottari claimed that this church hosted inside the ancient Church of Saint Nicola dei Greci, probably dated back up the late Byzantine era. Nowadays it serves as sacristy and it's enclosed between the Church of Carmelo and two private houses.

Today, only the rear prospect with an oculus and a small section of the north wall are still visible, but both are buried in the garden behind the main Church.

The year of foundation of the second Church - the one consecrated to Madonna del Carmelo, is unknown, but it's very likely that it dates back to the late seventeenth century. The evidences for this date are a painting depicting the Madonna del Carmelo among Saints and the donor, which shows the date 1665, painted by an unknown painter from Messina, and the acts of donation to the new Church, that are from the same period.