Catania Cathedral

The Duomo of Catania is dedicated to Sant'Agata and sits at the eastern end of Piazza del Duomo, on the foundations of a Norman cathedral founded in 1078. The baroque facade, designed by Giovanni Vaccarini after the 1693 earthquake, uses the same three-tone palette as much of the rebuilt city: white limestone, black lava, and warm honeyed tufa.

Inside, the cathedral is more sombre. The interior holds the tomb of the composer Vincenzo Bellini, born in Catania in 1801, and the chapel of Sant'Agata with the silver reliquary that comes out for the February festival. The crypt below preserves the remnants of the Norman church and some Roman thermal baths it was built over.

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The cathedral holds the relics of Sant'Agata, the city's patron saint, who was martyred under the Romans in the third century by having her breasts cut off. Once a year, in February, the relics are paraded through Catania in a three-day festival that draws a million people — one of the largest religious processions in the Christian world.