Miracle in Noto, the cathedral reopens

No steel nor cement. The sicilian church was rebuilt with ancient techniques and materials. And already it shows its magnificence.

Marcel or Modica stone? The pressing doubt that torments the inhabitants of Noto’s golden alleys concerns the cathedral’s floor: is it better to remake it according to the style of the 1900s or the 1700s? One part of the city, allied with Salvatore Bellomia, the church’s parson, wants marble. The rest of the town instead sides with the design team and hopes for Monica stone: white, porous, indestructible. The controversy engenders lively debates, popular petitions, pirandellian atmospheres, but most of all a certainty: the reopening of the cathedral which symbolises the Sicilian Baroque period is a matter of months away, as the new floor will be laid at the end of the restoration work. We are far from the polemic, though sacrosanct, that followed the collapse of the cupola and right nave: inadequate funding, few workmen, the capitals which ended up in a landfill, the litigious contractors which blocked the work. Water under the bridge: the Noto cathedral will be reborn in April. The church’s interior and exterior are still partially wreathed in scaffolding. The facade is however already free of steel piping and reveals all its charm.
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SOURCE: Panorama