Messina - Duomo

Messina, located at the southern entrance of the Strait of Messina, was in the 8th century B.C. founded by Greek colonists. After the First Punic War, it became Roman and after the fall of the Roman Empire, the city was successively ruled by the Goths from 476, then by the Byzantine Empire in 535, by the Arabs in 842, and in 1061 by the Norman brothers Robert Guiscard and Roger Guiscard, later known as Roger I of Sicily. In 1189 Richard I ("The Lionheart") stopped in Messina on his way to the Holy Land and briefly occupied the city after a dispute over the dowry of his sister, who was married to King William II of Sicily (= William the Good). . . Because a tectonic fault zone, the Messina Fault, runs through the Strait of Messina, earthquakes are common here. The city had to be rebuilt again and again. The Second World War brought further destruction to Messina.

The Cathedral was originally erected in the 12th century. The building had to be almost entirely rebuilt in 1919–20, following the devastating 1908 earthquake, and again in 1943, after a fire triggered by Allied bombings. The original Norman structure can be recognized in the apsidal area. The façade has three late Gothic portals, dating back to the early 15th century. Here is one of them.

I have already uploaded a lot of photos previously taken in Sicily. Now I will add only a few. If you want to see more, follow this link:

www.ipernity.com/doc/323415/album/1238300