Cattedrale di Maria Santissima di Romania

Tropea's cathedral, dedicated to Maria Santissima di Romania, is a Norman basilica repeatedly altered across eight centuries. Its thirteenth-century cedar-wood icon of the patroness stands above a church that also preserves Renaissance sculpture and an early Christian necropolis beneath the adjacent Largo Duomo.

Why it matters

The regional tourism authority dates the foundation to 1163 and describes the church as a significant example of Norman architecture. Later chapels, furnishings and twentieth-century restoration give it a layered appearance. The cathedral is the principal church of Tropea and the setting for devotion to the Madonna di Romania, whose icon remains central to the city's religious life.

What to notice

The north flank is identified as the surviving Norman side and includes a secondary portal crowned by a stone image of the Madonna of Romania. Inside, octagonal pillars of polychrome ashlar divide the three naves. The cedar-wood icon of the patroness, attributed to the Giotto school and dated to the thirteenth century, stands at the high altar. Other works include marble statues of the Madonna della Libertà and Madonna del Popolo, an eighteenth-century polychrome pulpit, a marble relief of the Resurrection attributed to the school of Antonello Gagini, and canvases in the Chapel of the Sacrament.

Context and history

The CEI census records the church's opening for worship in the twelfth century, enlargement in 1660, completion work in 1789 and restoration in 1926. The 1783 earthquake formed part of the seismic crisis that reshaped Tropea. The 1926 restoration removed much of the earlier decoration, leaving the composite appearance visible today. Excavations under Largo Duomo in 1980 uncovered an early Christian necropolis with more than fifty a cupa tombs. The church is a co-cathedral of the Diocese of Mileto-Nicotera-Tropea, whose diocesan seat is at Mileto.