Santa Maria La Nova is a Baroque-style church in Scicli. A church at the site, dedicated to Santa Maria della Pietà, was present by the 6th-7th centuries. This church was destroyed during the Norman conquest. Reconstruction under the sponsorship of the Confraternity of the same name was funded by Pietro Di Lorenzo Busacca that, doing the will in 1567. The rebuilt church was then destroyed by the 1693 earthquake.
Like most other churches in town, it has a facade with three orders, divided into three compartments by pilasters, two Ionic and one Corinthian. The third story links to a belltower with a stone balustrade. The original designer was Giovanni Venancio Marvuglia, but his work was carried out by Cardona, with the interior stucco decoration completed in 1801 by Emanuele and Domenico Ruiz. The nave is flanked by three chapels on each side with a dome at the crossing. The upper story and vaults of the nave were begun in 1817 and the stuccoes not completed until 1851 by Gianforma. The church was reconsecrated in 1857.
References:La Hougue Bie is a Neolithic ritual site which was in use around 3500 BC. Hougue is a Jèrriais/Norman language word meaning a \'mound\' and comes from the Old Norse word haugr. The site consists of 18.6m long passage chamber covered by a 12.2m high mound. The site was first excavated in 1925 by the Société Jersiaise. Fragments of twenty vase supports were found along with the scattered remains of at least eight individuals. Gravegoods, mostly pottery, were also present. At some time in the past, the site had evidently been entered and ransacked.
In Western Europe, it is one of the largest and best preserved passage graves and the most impressive and best preserved monument of Armorican Passage Grave group. Although they are termed \'passage graves\', they were ceremonial sites, whose function was more similar to churches or cathedrals, where burials were incidental.