Chiesa Madonna della Rocca (Madonna della Rocca Church), Taormina

Chiesa Madonna della Rocca (Madonna della Rocca Church) is a small church located on a steep mountain overlooking the town of Taormina. The church was built using the natural cave shape of the existing rock, and part of its ceiling is made up of living rock, known as Taormina stone. The church was founded by Abbot Francesco Raineri in 1640, with the help of the archbishop of Messina, Geronimo Venero.

Francesco Raineri was a Taormina priest who had a great love for his hometown, and he demonstrated this by embellishing the Chapel of the Church of S. Domenico, to which he donated a beautiful golden brass sphere with coral inlays. After his death in 1647, he was buried in the Madonna della Rocca Church, which he had built.

Next to the sanctuary, there was a small monastery where the religious retired to pray and do penance in hermitage, like the ancient anchorites or hermits. The hermitage had a view facing the Peloritani mountains, Castelmola, and Etna. The origin of the church of Madonna della Rocca can be traced back to the 12th century, during the Norman domination, when King Roger II ruled Sicily.

Legend has it that a young shepherd boy from the nearby village of Mola was grazing his flock on the mountain when a sudden storm forced him to take refuge with the sheep in the nearby cave. While the storm was raging outside the cave, the shepherd boy saw a beautiful woman all illuminated and shining, holding a blond child in her arms. The child smiled at him with maternal sweetness. The shepherd boy fled scared, abandoned his sheep in the cave, and ran to tell what had happened to his parents. When his parents went to the cave, they found a painting in which the woman was depicted, but the child's head was missing.