Basilian Monastery of S. Maria del Rogato

The Basilian Monastery of Santa Maria del Rogato was built around 1090 and is located far from the center, in the countryside beyond the Rosmarino stream. The monastery was spiritually the point of reference for the confessions and communions of the Hermit San Nicolò Politi who, precisely in this place, found burial from the year of his death, which took place in 1167, until 1503. The monastery welcomes the visitor in its simplicity, with a porch adjacent to the church and what remains of the monastic rooms. The interior contains one of the most important examples of medieval painting in Sicily: the cycle of thirteenth-century frescoes of the Dormition of the Virgin and San Giovanni Battista. Inside the church there is also a sculpture depicting San Nicolò Politi in a supine position, the old cypress urn that contained the remains and a popular eighteenth-century painting depicting the Assumption.