Palazzo Sciannaca

It is a large building that closes off Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II for an entire side. In addition to the size, this eighteenth-century building is characterized by the remarkable Baroque carvings of the balconies and the large ashlar portal surmounted by the noble coat of arms.

The church and the first recluse were built at the beginning of the 16th century, thanks to the offers of Militello devotees who wanted to erect a church dedicated to the martyr from Catania in their city. A "contrada of Sant'Agata" is mentioned in a deed of the notary Matteo Mancarello di Militello dated 1514. This initiative, a few decades later, was taken up by the lords of the city who equipped the prison and used it as a boarding school for "poor old maids". Partially damaged by the earthquake of 1693, the monastery was repaired and enlarged in 1695 by Prince Carlo Maria Carafa Branciforte, Marquis of Militello, who installed the cloistered Benedictine nuns there. The facade of the church was instead rebuilt in the late 18th century with carving in neoclassical forms, however remaining incomplete. In 1869, expelled the nuns following the suppression of religious orders by the Italian State, the premises of the monastery were sold to private individuals who obtained homes (some structures of the ancient monastery are still visible on the back from a courtyard in via Clausura), the church instead it was redeemed and transferred ownership to the matrix. The hall interior, essential in the decorations, houses the valuable 17th-century chapel of the main altar in polychrome stone in the Mannerist style (similar to the chapel of the main altar of the church of Purgatorio and to the chapel of the Nativity of Santa Maria la Vetere), this it frames the statue with a fern of the Madonna delle Grazie. The 17th-century statues of Sant'Agata and San Benedetto are also kept inside.

Votive church built in the second decade of the 18th century, based on a project by the Militellese architect Don Antonino Scirè Giarro, it was intended for the perpetual exposition of the Blessed Sacrament. It has a singular carved Baroque facade with a concave Borrominian profile, surmounted by a bell loggia with a three-light fan profile. Inside, decorated with elegant stuccoes in the late Baroque style, it preserves the valuable statue with its fercolo of Sant'Antonio Abate in the chair of 1575, the work of the Bivonese sculptor Antonio De Mauro, coming from the church of S. Antonio Abate. Of particular interest is the predella of the statue of the saint with scenes from his life depicted in relief. A tombstone from 1724 (today exhibited in the Treasury of S. Maria della Stella) remembers the spouses Alfio Palermo and Fortunata of the barons Lamia, benefactors of the church, buried here. The church also has two interesting frescoes, on the pillars of the large chapel of the presbytery, depicting the coat of arms of the Bourbons of Naples and Sicily in the two different elaborations, of Charles III and Ferdinand III of Sicily.

The Dominican friars arrived in Militello in 1536, at the behest of the Barresi, and here they settled at the Annunziata church outside the city, remaining there until the early 1600s. Subsequently, Prince Francesco Branciforte, to facilitate control over the population by the Holy Inquisition, wanted to transfer the seat of the Dominicans to the city, and had them build the new church and the new convent which were inaugurated in 1613. Damaged by the earthquake of 1693, both were soon redone. The church that can be seen today, one of the largest in Militello, is characterized by a large classical façade, with a spire-shaped tympanum, and a hall-like interior, decorated with stuccos, with a deep presbytery. Inside it housed six stone chapels with carvings, among which the one of the Madonna del Rosario stood out with a canvas by Mario Minniti from 1620 (now lost). Although the convent and the church suffered the effects of the suppression of 1866, the latter continued to function until the mid-1900s, when it was now unsafe and finally stripped of all its furnishings and abandoned (some surviving works are in Santa Maria della Stella and in San Benedetto). The premises of the convent instead housed a kindergarten (Asilo Laganà Campisi), schools and private homes. Fortunately, the entire complex was recovered and enhanced in the early 2000s. The church is now used as a Municipal Auditorium, while the former convent houses a conference room, the "Angelo Majorana" Municipal Library, the Civic Museum, the Historical Archive and the Civic Art Gallery "

Built in the 18th century, it has a very rich telamon portal. It is one of the most beautiful examples of post-earthquake aristocratic building.

Rare testimony of 16th-century civil construction, the enormous building was commissioned by the Barresi family as the seat of the jury court and the capital court (the two main administrative bodies of the city). Although remodeled in later periods, and owned several times (including the Majorana-Cocuzzella barons of Nicchiara), it has the original ashlar cantonals, enriched by severe stone lions from the Middle Ages recovered from older buildings.