Noto is home of the Baroque. The visit begins by entering the city from the Royal Gate built by the Neapolitan architect Angelini in 1838. We climb up the corso Vittorio Emanuele and first encounter the church of St. Francis of Assisi. Immediately after, the church of Santa Chiara dell’Assunta which was completed in 1758 by Rosario Gagliardi and annexed next to the Benedictine monastery. You can vividly see the Baroque style displayed with polychrome, colors and paintings, along with the a very significant representation of the Madonna and Child by Antonello Gagini in sixteenth-century marble.

San Nicolò cathedral, completed in 1703, is one of the most significant monuments of Sicilian baroque. To admire are the interior frescoes, including the dome constructed by Oleg Superenko in 2011 after its collapse in 1996 due to the 1990 earthquake.

Another pearl of its unrivaled heritage restored is Palazzo Nicolaci. The Palace of the Princes is something spectacular and today, brought back to the ancient splendor, gives the dimension of wealth and opulence Noto experienced in a bygone era. In baroque style with about 90 rooms, the palace designed by Rosario Gagliardi dates back to the first decades of the 1700s.

A religious festival known in many parts of the world is the Infiorata di Noto, considered the greeting of Spring. It is on display the third Sunday in May every year in via Nicolaci and includes around sixteen large portraits designed on the ground using flower petals.