The Cathedral is on a small piazza on Corso Umberto with the splendid Baroque Centaur fountain in front of it.
The Cathedral dates from the C13th and is built on the site of an
earlier church. It was rebuilt in the C15/16th and restored in the
C18th.
With its battlements it looks more like a fortress than a church, especially the north facade.
The Baroque west door was added in the 1636 under instructions from the
local administrators, as recorded in the marble slab above the door. On
either side are two columns and a frieze carved with figures of the four
evangelists with their symbols, apostles and bishops. At the top of the
door is Jesus as the Good Shepherd. Below on the two doors are images
of St Nicholas, the titular saint of the church and Saint Pancras,
Taormina’s Patron Saint.
The door on the north wall is earlier and has vines carved on either side, along with a hind drinking from a stream.
The cathedral is a traditional Norman church with nave, side aisles and
three apses. The six pink marble columns in the nave are thought to have
come from the Greek theatre.
The main altar set in the central apse has a crucifix and very tall
candlesticks. In front of it is a smaller altar with a carving of the
last supper on the front.
On either side are two chapels, reached through round archways. On the right is the Chapel of Our Lady of Graces.
To the left is the Chapel of the Holy Sacrament which was rebuilt in the
Baroque style at the end of the C18th, with an elaborate marble altar
and reredos.
Down the walls of the aisles are large marble altars, added in C17th.
Above the altar at the back of the right aisle near the door is a
painting from 1463 showing the Visitation of the Virgin Mary with Saints
Joseph and Zechariah. The second altar has a beautiful painted 1504
polyptych. The lower panel depicts the Madonna and Child with Saints
Jerome and Sebastian on either side. Above is the Deposition of Christ
with Saints Lucy and Agatha. The panel below depicts the Last Supper.
The third altar has a beautiful Eastern-Orthodox-style painted icon on
wood which is covered with silver incrusted with semi-precious stones.
At the back of the left aisle, above the altar, is a C16th painting of
the Enthroned Virgin and Child between John the Baptist and the Prophet
Elia. Above is God the Father with the crucified Christ.
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