It was in this context that a Capuchin friar, Fra Francesco Giarratana, witnessed an angel appearing in the sky over Caltanissetta, dressed in military attire, preventing a plague-stricken man from entering the city walls.
The angelic figure presented himself to the friar as the Prince of Angels and, declaring that he had saved Caltanissetta from the plague, requested that a sanctuary be erected for his worship and that he be venerated as the protector of the city.
The friar then communicated this heavenly vision to the city’s religious and civil authorities and went with them to the site indicated by the Archangel — corresponding today to Via Sallemi — where they found a man afflicted with the disease who had died before being able to cross the protective walls of the city, thus sparing it from the spread of the epidemic.
Near that very site today stands the convent dedicated to Archangel Michael, and during the same year, 1625, the sculptor from Nicosia, Stefano Li Volsi, was commissioned to create the wooden statue, which is still devoutly carried in procession today.