Church of San Rocco

Built in 1575, following the vote made by the city during a long pestilence, it is surrounded on three sides by a Ghibelline battlements and adjoined to the remains of the walls of 1292 of James of Aragon. He belonged to a brotherhood of sailors of the Merchant Navy. The church has a single nave with semicircular apse covered by dome, according to a widespread Renaissance typology. Externally, it is characterized by an original medieval architectural style, due to the characteristic dovetail battlements that crown.

Inside, which is accessed through a pronaos, we must remember the eighteenth-century wooden altar on which stands the polychrome statue of San Rocco from the late sixteenth century and on whose sides were placed two paintings, San Giacomo and L’Addolorata, stolen in 1987 as well as other works. To remember also a marble monument of a sailor of the Mercantile Navy dating back to 1876.
In July 1743 this church was the protagonist of a prodigious event: during the procession of Madonna del Carmine, while in Messina there was a pestilence, at the height of San Rocco, the doors of the church opened and the figure of the Holy Blessing stood above the dome as a sign of protection for the city.