Cattedrale di San Bartolomeo

The cathedral of San Bartolomeo stands at the centre of Lipari’s citadel plateau and has served as the island’s mother church for centuries. Rebuilt after fire and earthquake damage, it preserves a Norman cloister beside Baroque vaults and houses the Vascelluzzo silver reliquary.

Why it matters

The cathedral is a principal monument within the citadel walls and is associated with the cult of the apostle Bartholomew in the Aeolian Islands. Its history includes a Benedictine abbey founded under Count Roger, its elevation to cathedral status in 1131, and its role as the archipelago’s only parish until 1910. The local name ‘a Citàti, “the cathedral as the city itself,” recalls the community that once lived within the citadel.

What to notice

The west facade contrasts a pale lower order with a darker upper one; an eighteenth-century bell tower completes the composition. The central bronze doors, cast in the 1980s, depict four scenes relating to Bartholomew and the archipelago. Inside, three naves run beneath cross-vaults frescoed around 1700 with Old Testament scenes. Chapels occupy the arcades of the cloister’s north walk, annexed to the church when the side aisles were added in 1772. The chapel of the Madonna del Rosario contains a seventeenth-century marble altar and a painting about a century older. The treasury includes the Vascelluzzo, a silver vessel shaped like a small ship and said to hold a fragment of Saint Calogero’s skin.

Context and history

After the Muslim conquest of 838 destroyed the earlier cathedral, Abbot Ambrogio and his Benedictines, sent by Count Roger I, rebuilt the abbey church of San Bartolomeo on the citadel. In 1131 its abbot, Giovanni di Pèrgana, became bishop and the church became a cathedral. The adjoining monastery included a Latin-Norman cloister. Enlarged between 1450 and 1515 and roofed with a timber truss ceiling, the church was set alight during Barbarossa’s sack of Lipari in July 1544. Reconstruction in the later sixteenth century produced the tall barrel-vaulted nave. Eighteenth-century additions included the vault frescoes, a silver statue of the patron made in 1728, the campanile, side aisles and a straw-coloured facade. Canvases by Antonio Mercurio were added to the marble altars in the 1780s. In 1859 lightning brought down the facade tympanum and several vault bays; restoration was completed by 1861.