The church of Santa Maria la Vetere is the ancient cathedral of Licata, called La Vetere (the old one) to distinguish it from Santa Maria La Nuova (the new one), the current cathedral of the city. It was the main church when people lived under the slopes of Mount Sant’Angelo. This church was built by Blessed Silvia, mother of the future Pope Saint Gregory the Great and founded by him, to host in 580 A.D. a community of Benedictines. The church is also called Santa Maria del Monte and later Santa Maria di Gesù (Saint Maria of Mount and Saint Maria of Jesus).
At the end of the XVI century the church with convent was chosen as the seat of the Franciscan order of the Minor Observers. Due to the violent earthquake of 1542 and the Franco-Turkish invasion of 1553, the church was restructured, with a series of transformations and modifications that changed its structural structure and artistic appearance.
The prospectus, several times modified, today is presented with a coating of slabs, made with Sabucina stone, which in some way wants to be a copy of the existing one of the early 1900s.
Inside the church there is a square with a beautiful triumphal arch made at the end of the XVI century, which is finely decorated with classical motifs, where there is a beautiful wooden case, painted in gold, work of a valid artisan of the place in the 1700s, which is based on the artistic style of the Franciscan churches.
The side aisles are covered with fine wooden panels in which are set five paintings on octagonal tables depicting Franciscan saints.
Visiting the church you can immediately notice on the right of the entrance two Byzantine frescoes, which depict Saint Gregory the Great, which according to local tradition was the founder of the church, and Blessed Silvia, mother of the Pope.
Particular is the statue of Saint Calogero, made of plastered jute from the eighteenth century, coming from the rock church.
The church was a military shrine, because it welcomed the bodies of soldiers of the world wars and in the Middle Ages was part of the route of Franciscan Way.
