The Church and the monastery dedicated to St. Lucia had an important role in the city worship, because of its location in the heart of Ortygia and especially for the feast of St. Lucia in May, set up in memory of a miraculous intervention of the Saint (which is still celebrated on the first Sunday of May) during the famine of 1646, when, according to the tradition, she brought two ships with wheat in the port, hence putting an end to the long and painful hunger of the people, defined as “dira fames” in the plaque exposed in the church below the nuns’ choir.Since 2009, the church houses the painting “The Burial of Saint Lucia” (oil on canvas 300×408 cm) painted by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio between 1608 and 1609 during his stay in Syracuse, after his escape from Malta.