In the first half of the 18th century, at the request of the Confraternity of the Holy Spirit, composed of fishermen and maritime traders from the Gornelle district, it was decided to demolish the ancient Church of the Holy Spirit and the adjoining Church of Saint Catherine, and to build the present structure on the same perimeter.
Consecrated on 7 December 1752, it was erected according to the design of the Messina architect Antonio Brancati under the rectorate of the priest Giovanni Baviera.
The confraternity, already active since the 16th century, received a new statute approved by King Ferdinand IV following a report made by the Royal Chief Chaplain and according to the framework established by the Royal Chamber of Santa Chiara on 23 November 1778.
The rector oversaw the administration of the church, which was supported through the alms of all the sailors who had agreed to contribute one quarter of the profits from their voyages and commercial activities carried out with their feluccas.
The church suffered damage from the earthquake of 1783 and, even more severely, from the tidal wave generated by the collapse, caused by the tremors, of the Campallà rocky cliff.
Thanks to the economic prosperity of the members of the Confraternity, the structure was repaired in a very short time, and the interior decoration was entrusted to the great Palermo decorator Gioacchino Gianforma.
The building did not suffer damage from the earthquakes of 1807, 1894, 1905, or 1908. On 5 August 1943, during the Allied operation to land in Sicily and subsequently on the Italian mainland, a British aircraft dropped a bomb near the sacred building, and the resulting shrapnel destroyed the first four bays of the stucco vault. The roof was immediately rebuilt by the people of Scilla using the original wooden structures.
The vault, however, was reconstructed “from memory” during a restoration carried out by the Superintendence twelve years later. In 1978 the church underwent a new restoration.
On New Year’s Eve 1980, a tremendous storm surge devastated the coastline between Scilla and Capo Vaticano.
The waves, some of which exceeded ten metres in height, destroyed the outer wall of the auxiliary building providing access to the sacristy and, penetrating beneath its floor level, lifted the slab from below, damaging ceilings and partitions.
After breaking down the wall and the side entrance door of the church, the waves violently destroyed pews, doors, and confessionals.
Several restoration campaigns followed, the latest of which was completed in 2015 and included the repainting of both the exterior and interior of the church. Today the church presents itself in all its elegant late-Baroque beauty. A wooden and glass vestibule separates the entrance from the nave.
Above it rises the decorated wooden choir loft. Floral festoons converge at the centre, where a dove with outstretched wings is depicted. The church has a single nave. The side walls contain four altars, two on each side, separated by four pilasters with composite capitals, upon which are placed the paintings depicting the Stations of the Cross. Beginning from the main entrance, the first two altars are made of wood.
The altar on the left, set between two columns and two pilasters and surmounted by a gilded coat of arms bearing the inscription CHARITAS, houses a sixteenth-century panel painting depicting Saint Francis of Paola, protector of seafarers, toward whom the devotion of the district’s community has always been profound.
As testimony to this devotion, in addition to the panel painting, the church also preserves a statue of the Saint made of gessoed canvas, plaster, and wood. Attributed to the Scilla canon Giuseppe Ingigneri, it dates to the mid-18th century.
The altar on the right, in the same style as that of Saint Francis, contains a painting on canvas depicting Our Lady of Mount Carmel.
The altar is surmounted by a coat of arms bearing the Marian monogram A M as its emblem.
At the centre of the left wall is the side entrance door, surmounted by a medallion supported by two cherubs.
On the opposite side, in place of a doorway, stands one of the two wooden confessionals. In the front section of the nave are the two marble side altars. Of the same style, with inlaid marbles and a Baroque structure, the altar on the left contains a painting of Saint Anthony of Padua, while the one on the right is dedicated to Saint Vitus.
The nave ends on the left with the second confessional, above which is placed a display case containing a wooden statue portraying the Virgin Mary kneeling as she receives the gift of the Holy Spirit in the form of a red flame.
On the right is the door leading outside the building and to the sacristy, above which stands the wooden pulpit. The roof is barrel-vaulted.
Four large rectangular windows open onto it, and three stucco rosettes divide the vault into three sections.
The floor is composed of white marble slabs and black marble slabs arranged in diamond patterns.
At the centre is the entrance to the crypt below. The presbytery, raised above the nave, is separated from it by a white marble balustrade with a cast-iron gate.
The side walls are occupied by the wooden choir stalls in chestnut and local walnut, surmounted by carved and gilded wooden candelabra that follow their perimeter. In the background stands the high altar.
This jewel of late-Baroque art is composed of more than ten varieties of marble.
At its centre, set between four columns with pink shafts and Corinthian capitals of white Carrara marble, is the painting *The Descent of the Holy Spirit*, executed by Francesco Celebrano, court painter to the Bourbons, in 1799, and donated to the Confraternity by King Ferdinand IV.
On either side, two marble brackets support two fully sculpted angels holding candelabra with five candles.
Above, the crowning feature consists of a fully sculpted dove set against a background of gilded wooden rays.
The whole is surmounted by a large gilded wooden crown in royal style.
Two stucco angels support a festoon connected to the crown, while two other angels seated on the cornice are depicted in acts of exaltation, the one on the right, and adoration, the one on the left, of the great cross placed above the crown.
In the central section, a diamond-shaped rosette enclosed within a circular frame connects to the two large rectangular windows. Finally, in the only original bay marking the beginning of the presbytery, two fully sculpted angels support a festoon bearing the inscription “VENI SANCTE SPIRITUS”.

Dottor Rocco Panuccio