Duomo di Catanzaro

Catanzaro's Duomo, dedicated to Santa Maria Assunta and Saints Peter and Paul, has been rebuilt after earthquakes, fire and wartime bombing. The cathedral standing in Piazza Duomo today is a postwar reconstruction that retains artworks and devotional objects from earlier buildings.

Why it matters

The mother church of the Archdiocese of Catanzaro-Squillace was consecrated in 1121 in the presence of Pope Callistus II. The cathedral was enlarged in the Renaissance, damaged in earthquakes and fire, and badly affected by the bombing of 27 August 1943, which destroyed the chapel of San Vitaliano. Reconstruction began in 1955, and the church was consecrated again in 1960.

What to notice

The rebuilt cathedral has a marble-clad hall, a coffered ceiling and a glazed dome. A portico of three arcades faces the north side, while the bell tower rises at the centre of the façade beneath Giuseppe Rito's bronze statue of the Assunta. Among the surviving works are a sixteenth-century silver bust of San Vitaliano attributed to Gilberto Lelio, a 1595 Madonna delle Grazie and an eighteenth-century Dormitio Virginis. The cathedral also preserves an Assunta altarpiece dated 1750, a Via Crucis by Alessandro Monteleone, canvases by Lorenzo Jovino and apse mosaics designed by Ugo Mazzei.

Context and history

The first church was dedicated to Santa Maria Assunta and Saints Peter and Paul. Bishop Giovanni Andrea Torrefranca enlarged it between 1509 and 1517. The façade fell in the 1638 earthquake, a fire followed in 1660, and further earthquakes in 1744, 1783 and 1832 prompted repairs. The church reopened in 1844 with a bell tower designed by Michele Manfredi. After the 1943 bombing, architects Vincenzo Fasolo and Franco Domestico began the postwar reconstruction in 1955, completed by the 1960 reconsecration.