Church of Santa Maria Assunta - Tortorici

The Church of Santa Maria Assunta, whose construction began in 1756 and was completed in 1798, collects and preserves an artistic heritage of five centuries. Inside you can admire some paintings by Giuseppe Tomasi: Santa Maria delle Grazie with San Giovanni and Santa Lucia (1638), Assumption of the Virgin Mary (1652), Spasimo (1653). There is also a wooden pulpit (1675) with relief carving and eight panels depicting the four evangelists and four fathers of the church, an organ built in 1778 by Giovanni Platania di Acireale and other works by local artists. Next to the church is the bell tower in which stands a majestic bell, weighing two tons, built in 1552 by the Oricense bell masters Jeronimo Domenico and Antonino Garbatu. Listening to the melodious sound of this bell does not happen every day, but only from the first to the twenty-eighth of January and on the second Sunday of May, periods of the celebrations in honor of San Sebastiano, patron of Tortorici.