To the Messina and tourists like the artistic beauties of Messina at night: many people visiting the monumental complex of the exceptionally open cathedral basilica on the occasion of the anniversary of the dedication, together with the church SS. Annunziata dei Catalani.
The Santa Maria Church under the Duomo with the crypt and the bell tower with the astronomical clock the most visited places. The breathtaking postcard of the city seen from above, but also the works of the cathedral including a copy of the iconography of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Placido Samperi, among the beauty snapshots of this before the two extraordinary openings (the second on August 23). Music and singing enriched the evening coordinated by the Basilica entity with Msgr. Roberto Romeo, the diocesan review Harmonie of the Spirit and the Messina Sacra Association: to the monumental organ of Tamburini of the Cathedral, Maestro Riccardo Tiberia together with the Santa Maria Assunta chapel directed by Don Giovanni Lombardo. In the crypt, the exhibition of a copy of the testament of Msgr. Francesco Maria De Miceli Bishop of Lipari and a detail of the 18th century bronze slab depicting the intake of Mary’s sky and the concert for piano and voice of Don Lombardo, Maria Pagano and Stefania De Luca.
The dedication of the cathedral of Messina took place on 13 August 1947 when – following the serious damage caused by the bombings of the Second World War – the building was reopened to worship by Archbishop Angelo Paino, again dedicated and awarded the title of Basilica by Pius XII. The cathedral, named after S. Maria Assunta, whose origin dates back to 1197 – Norman era in which its first dedication dates back – despite the multiple structures taken over time by the city repeatedly destroyed and reconstructed, has always occupied the same site and rebuilt in the context of the same sacred building.