The church, together to the adjacent convent, was constructed in the last few decades of XI the century, "inaugurated" and entrusted to the monaci basiliani, of ritual it orients them, in 1092, with action of donation of the Conte Ruggero the Normanno, which, beyond donating them remarkable extensions of land in the near zones of odierno III the Quarter of the Common one of Messina, it made ivi to bury just the Giordano son, died in battle near Siracusa in that year. However, the presence of a small cenobio already in age bizantina in the place where it rose, in 1092, the new Abbey normanna, sufficiently is documented. The presence of the Abbey, economic center not only religious but also and (for a sure period of time) also political of the valley of Mili and those surrounding ones, stimulated activity like the production of the silk, the cultivation of pertaining lands to it and the molitura of the grain, giving place to the formation of a first inhabited nucleus to mount of the Abbey, in the high river basin of the torrent Mili (Advanced Mili, today Saint Mili Peter) and subsequently Larderia and Inferior Mili (today Saint Mili S.MArco).
The Abbey, between ` 300 and ` 400, crossed a period of forfeiture to cause, above all, of the usurpazione of own lands from part of noble messinesi without scrupoli, whose names even appear in the series of the Abbots of that period (embryonic case of "conflict of interest"!). The resumption, on the base of little documents today recovered, had to begin with XVI the century, when, just in 1511, the only one navata of the church was extended of approximately a third and rifared ceiling. The Abbey, of Regal patronage, was subject to periodic visits of King or visitors regi that they guaranteed the honor and the uniformità of the cult to that "official". Abbot, of nomination direction, from the 1542 divenne in perpetual, for wanting of the emperor Carl V, the chancellor of the Great Hospital of Messina, as soon as founded in the city of the Strait. Subsequently a period of forfeiture was opened for the Abbey that but never did not carry to the collapse of the religious institution, as it happened for good part of the basiliani monasteri in Sicily of the time, probably because supported economically from the lively agricultural economy of the territory. The history of the cenobio is closed poorly in 1866 when, with the eversive laws post-unitarians, the convent was acquired from the Federal property and sold to various subjects, while the church remained in possession of the Bottom Buildings of Cult of the Ministry of the Interior and, from then, pours in one be of total degradation.
Convent is today in predecay conditions of stability, and good part of it is already collapsed, while the church, fit for use thanks to a highly summarized restoration of first years ' 80, is inaccessible dates the conditions predecays of the arc of income to the monasteriale complex that have involved, in the December of 2002, the seizure of the entire complex. And therefore a such architectonic jewel, ignored from all and all, yields progressively to the blows that the time gradatamente arranges to it, embezzling it to the fruizione of the citizens and the tourists who you accorrono also from the foreign country. From the architectonic point of view, the structure of the church is much simple one, to only navata and with three apses; the inside has been completely undressed of putties and the altars that adorned it from a debatable restoration at the beginning of ` the 900. To admire the three cupolas of the absidale zone, in all similar to those of the North African mosques and, from the inside, the game of it of muslim ancestry, that they support the cupola centers them, greater, and the two minors to sides arch overlapped, anch'. To the outside, typical of the architecture normanna it is the system of arches interlaces to you, present in many monuments sicialian of the time and the decoration of the apse to arches resting on lesene. Beautiful also the portale in marble and limestone stone of the simple facade, constructed more ahead of the previous one in the cinquecentesco participation of lengthening of the navata one, and same portone ligneo, the going back one to ` the 500. To admire also the girder roof discovered of 1511, given that law on one beam. The convent, in phase of degradation from decades, is posterior to the 1092, because reconstructed one on the previous one, demolished or destroyed we for reasons ignoti. In it some important studies have carried to the light rests that they would confirm the presence of a cenobio bizantino previous to that one normanno and also a large one knows it of the flat earth used after millstone.
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