The tiny hamlet of Pietrapennata stands in the Alìca Valley, where the evocative remnants of what was once a church, maybe a monastery, still stand, in an open, quiet spot, gentle and severe at the same time, as places dedicated to meditation ought to be.

Santa Maria dell’Alica is a set of buildings that has been altered many times down through the ages. It contains masonry from different historical periods, the oldest most probably from the twelfth century, during Norman times. The others range between then and the seventeenth-eighteenth centuries. The church has a single nave, of about 6×13 metres, that is, a breadth-length ratio of approximately two to one. The apse faces east, while the prothesis and diaconicòn appear to have been added at a later date. In the seventeenth century, a bell-tower was built against the south wall, at the point where the apse once stood. This campanile is two-tiered with a cornice in polychrome tiles, similar to the campaniles of S. Sebastiano in Amendolea (dating from the early eighteenth century) and S. Salvatore in Cataforio (1611?). Outside the church, at an angle to it and facing north-east, stands a building dating back to the seventeenth-eighteenth centuries, probably the sacristy, which Mons. Contestabile, in 1670, said needed to be completed. On the south wall there are traces of a portico including the fragment of an arch, the masonry of which may be attributed to the twelfth century. At about 9 metres from the south wall and at a level about 1.5 metres lower than it, are remains of a sturdy wall.

The description of this church is by Sebastiano Maria Venoso, published in “Portpàtima” edited by Alfonso Picone Chiodo, Edizioni Apodiafazzi 2015.