Mother Church of Saint Andrew

The Mother Church is dedicated to Saint Andrew the Apostle and the Assumption of Mary. It occupies the site of an earlier sixteenth-century parish church damaged by the 1743 earthquake. The present building was begun in the 1770s and completed in 1781, reportedly in only eighteen months of construction, with funding raised by the community and local craftsmen carrying out the work. The Renaissance bell tower from the earlier church survived, making the exterior a clear meeting of two periods.

The façade is one of Presicce's most accomplished late-Baroque compositions. Corinthian pilasters guide the eye upward to a rich crowning section that remains visible from several points in town. Inside, a Latin-cross plan with a single nave is lined by nine altars. The side altars carry fine stucco work, while the high altar, balustrade, font and holy-water stoups use polychrome marble associated with Neapolitan craftsmanship. Wooden and papier-mâché statues record both popular devotion and Presicce's artistic links with Naples.

Beside the parish church, the small Chapel of the Dead adds a much older and more intimate layer. Its underground burials remained in use until the late nineteenth century, and restoration exposed arches and fragments of painted decoration from earlier buildings on the site, with works dating between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. In the square outside, the Baroque Column of Saint Andrew completes the devotional setting with the patron saint raised above figures representing the cardinal virtues.