Cathedral Museum of Messina

Inside the Basilica Sanctuary, the “Annibale Di Francia” Museum was established, inaugurated in the Holy Year 2000. Its originality lies in the ½ scale reconstruction of the entire “Avignon Quarter,” just as Saint Annibale found it during his first encounter with the poor who lived there, commonly called “mignuri”.

The Museum, created in two years based on designs by Architect Eng. Livio Lucà Trombetta, brings back the figure and work of the distinguished citizen of Messina. The exhibition path begins with the gaze directed at the pulpit, already in the Sanctuary and now placed here after the Sanctuary’s restoration completed in 1976.

In the entrance corridor of the Museum, you can admire the drawings of Architect Antonio Favaloro who, as an eyewitness, faithfully reproduces the topography and structure of the quarter. Also to admire is the precious 17th-century marble statue of Our Lady of Graces, signed by the Roman sculptor Vincenzo Tedeschi, which after the 1783 earthquake was moved from the Church of Santa Restituta to that of the Annunziata near the Zaèra stream.