The construction of the first Church of San Nicolò di Bari in San Fratello is uncertain. The first historical parochial documents date back to the 16th century, by virtue of the new trend of compiling the first registers of religious activities in the communities. There are those who claim that it was founded immediately after the arrival of the Normans, but to date no historical document confirms this supposition.
Looking at the photos prior to the landslide of 1922, it is easy to hypothesize that between the 1500s and 1600s the church was rebuilt or affected by works with the intention of increasing its prestige and grandeur.
This new structure was in the form of a Latin cross, its three beautiful naves were divided by valuable red marble columns (recovered from the ruins of a temple of the ancient acropolis located on Monte Vecchio, as well as many materials from the Church) which, together with the furnishings, gave an aspect of sumptuousness. The square was adorned with a balustrade with about thirty half-length statues of famous people.
Today, only the right wing and the lower part of the bell tower remain of it, the central nave and the left one were destroyed following the landslide of 1922 which damaged the building irreparably, without however demolishing it. The bell tower built with local marble bears the date of 1635.
In the 1950s the Church of San Nicolò was abandoned, and a new Church of San Nicolò was built in the new Stazzone district, furnished with the treasures of the old matrix. Obviously, for architecture the new structure could never have equaled the beauty of the first San Nicolò, on the other hand the new cult building would have been larger.
For years the ancient San Nicolò was at the center of various recovery interventions, but currently it is still an abandoned ruin. The new San Nicolò, on the other hand, was the new religious center of the town together with the Church of the Convent for about 60 years.
The new Church has the shape of a Latin cross, with a dome covered in copper in the centre, 22 meters high from the ground and a secluded bell tower, inside formed by three naves divided by 10 columns, furnished with most of the marble materials, sacred furnishings , such as the altars, the balustrades, the canvases, the statues, the paintings and with everything that has been recoverable from the old Church of San Nicolò.
The interior represented a synthesis between the ancient and the modern: among the many statues the "Madonna della neve" of the sixteenth century, from the school of Gaggini, the statues of the three saints, that of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (devotion that was born in San Fratello in 1870), the canvas depicting the souls in purgatory by Francesco Liuzzo from 1711, one from 1700 depicting the nativity created by G. Tommasi and a canvas by Olivo Sozzi depicting the Queen of Victory with Saint Catherine of Siena, Saint Dominic and Santa Rosalia from the end of the 1700s, which has 15 small paintings on the mysteries of the Rosary set in a finely crafted frame; The mosaics, in particular the large mosaic of the Risen Christ placed on the high altar and the decorations following the restoration at the end of the 90s had transformed it making it particularly bright.
Model made by Salvo Genovese
Model made by Salvo Genovese
Unfortunately, this building too was affected by a hydrogeological instability on 14 February 2010, which damaged the load-bearing structure, causing its forced demolition which was recently completed.
Once the internal treasures have been recovered (as far as possible), only the high altar with the large mosaic of the Risen Christ remains in memory of the Church, which in turn is at the center of a new project that keeps the memory alive, as well as the sacredness of the territory.