The Most Beautiful Sacred Places in Sicily
5 places · updated 13 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most beautiful sacred places in Sicily are Necropolis of Pantalica, Catacombe dei Cappuccini and Cathedral of Syracuse. The list covers 5 sacred places. Last updated 13 October 2026.
Sicily has been holy ground for nearly every people that crossed the Mediterranean. Bronze Age communities cut their tombs into limestone gorges, Greek colonists raised Doric temples to their gods, and later Byzantines, Arabs and Normans layered churches over one another. Norman Palermo in particular fused Latin, Greek and Islamic craft into a style found nowhere else, and much of it survives intact. A sacred place here is often several faiths deep.
The Necropolis of Pantalica, in the hills inland from Syracuse, is a gorge whose cliffs are honeycombed with thousands of rock-cut tombs from the late Bronze and early Iron Ages. In Syracuse itself the cathedral is built directly into a Doric temple of Athena from the fifth century BC, and its ancient columns still stand in the walls and nave. Palermo's Capuchin Catacombs hold thousands of mummified bodies, dressed and displayed along long corridors, the most unsettling shrine on the island.
Norman faith is at its most luminous in La Martorana, founded by the admiral George of Antioch, where Byzantine mosaics include a scene of Christ crowning King Roger II. Above Palermo, Monreale Cathedral, begun by William II, covers its interior in gold-ground mosaics of the Old and New Testaments, with a cloister of carved paired columns beside it. From prehistoric graves to Greek and Norman sanctuaries, the island's sacred map spans three thousand years.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Necropolis of Pantalica | Necropolis | ✓ |
| 2 | Catacombe dei Cappuccini | Catacombs | |
| 3 | Cathedral of Syracuse | Cathedral | |
| 4 | La Martorana (Santa Maria dell'Ammiraglio), Palermo | Church building | ✓ |
| 5 | Cattedrale di Monreale | Cathedral | ✓ |
01 Necropolis of Pantalica
Pantalica
Italy · 28.1 km from Syracuse37.133° N 14.983° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Danny Krull · CC BY-SA 2.0 The necropolis served a community that flourished on the plateau from about 1250 to 650 BC, during the Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages, before and during the first Greek settlement of Sicily. The tombs are grouped into five main cemeteries, known as Filiporto, North West, Cavetta, North and South, and their date shifts from one area to another.
Did you know? Near the Filiporto entrance lies a Byzantine-era village of about 150 rock-cut dwellings around the cliff-edge chapel of San Micidiario, where a faint Christ Pantocrator survives.
02 Catacombe dei Cappuccini
Italy · 1.9 km from Palermo38.112° N 13.339° E
Giacomo Palermo · CC BY-SA 4.0 The effect today is of a vast, silent gathering. The halls are sorted by category, with separate corridors for friars, priests, professionals, men, women, virgins and children, and the clothes span three centuries of fashion, from clerical vestments to the everyday dress of each generation. A census in 2011 counted about 1,250 mummified bodies among roughly 8,000 dead.
Did you know? Under the standard method, bodies were drained for about a year, washed with vinegar, stuffed with straw and then dressed.
03 Cathedral of Syracuse
Duomo di Siracusa
Italy · 1.3 km from Syracuse37.059° N 15.294° E
pjt56 --- · CC BY-SA 3.0 The temple was commissioned by the tyrant Gelon after his victory over the Carthaginians at the Battle of Himera in 480 BC. It was a Doric peripteral temple with six columns on the short sides and fourteen on the long sides, about 22 by 55 metres. In the 7th century AD Bishop Zosimo converted the temple into a church, keeping the ancient colonnade as part of the new walls rather than pulling it down.
Did you know? In 1100 an earthquake brought down the vault during a service, killing many worshippers.
04 La Martorana (Santa Maria dell'Ammiraglio), Palermo
Chiesa della Martorana
Italy · 1.9 km from Palermo38.115° N 13.363° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
GiorgioGaleotti · CC BY-SA 4.0 George, a Christian from Syria, began the church around 1143, the date of its foundation charter in Greek and Arabic, and it was finished before his death in 1151; he and his wife were buried in its narthex. The original building was a compact Byzantine cross-in-square with three apses, soon extended by a narthex, a forecourt and a western bell tower with three tiers of arched openings that still serves as the entrance.
Did you know? The 18th-century frescoes in the later parts of the church are attributed to the Flemish painter Guglielmo Borremans.
More about La Martorana (Santa Maria dell'Ammiraglio), Palermo →
05 Cattedrale di Monreale
Duomo di Monreale
Italy · 7 km from Palermo38.082° N 13.292° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Image by whoefle from Pixabay From outside, the church looks relatively plain between its two western towers. The main portal has bronze doors signed by Bonanno Pisano in 1186, while the side door on the left has bronze panels by Barisano da Trani from 1179. On the north side a Renaissance portico was added by the Gagini family between 1547 and 1569.
Did you know? According to legend, William II found gold coins among the roots of the carob tree where he dreamt of the Virgin, and used them to build the church.
How this list is ranked
Places are chosen for how they look, not for how famous they are: each one has its own description and a photograph credited to its author. The order is a single world ranking that weighs the beauty of the place in curated photography together with how widely it is documented — the number of language editions of its encyclopedia article and how often that article is read in a year. The list is rebuilt as places are added, so the order and the counts on this page are always current.
Questions people ask
- What are the most beautiful sacred places in Sicily?
- On our list, Necropolis of Pantalica ranks first, followed by Catacombe dei Cappuccini and Cathedral of Syracuse.
- Why are there Greek columns inside Syracuse Cathedral?
- The cathedral was created by converting the fifth-century BC Temple of Athena into a church, so the original Doric columns were incorporated into its walls rather than removed.
- What is Arab-Norman architecture in Sicily?
- It is the style of Norman-era Sicily that combined Western church plans, Byzantine mosaics and Islamic decoration such as muqarnas ceilings; Palermo's Arab-Norman monuments and the cathedrals of Cefalù and Monreale are a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
- What are the Capuchin Catacombs of Palermo?
- They are burial vaults beneath a Capuchin convent where, from the late sixteenth century, thousands of bodies were preserved and displayed, many still in their clothes.
- How many sacred places are on this list in Sicily?
- The list covers 5 sacred places.