The cathedral known as the “jewel of European Baroque”, rebuilt painstakingly after an earthquake, is at risk from oil drilling off the coast of Sicily.

The 18th-century cathedral at Noto, on the southeast coast of Sicily, is to reopen this month after a decade of restoration at a cost of £17 million. The dome collapsed into the nave in 1996 because of failure to repair cracks caused by an earlier earthquake. The restoration is hailed as a “Baroque rebirth”.

Noto was declared a Unesco World Heritage Site in 2000. However, Panther Oil, owned by the Texan oil baron James Smitherman III, has been given permission by the Sicilian regional authority to prospect for petroleum and natural gas in a 764sq km (295sq mile) area, to the anger of local campaigners.

One of the most vociferous is Andrea Camilleri — the detective writer gaining a worldwide audience for his Inspector Montalbano mysteries. “How would the people of Rome feel if oil rigs were allowed at the Colosseum, or the people of Venice if nodding donkeys appeared in St Mark’s Square?” Mr Camilleri said in a front-page appeal in La Repubblica.

Corrado Valvo, the Mayor, said that the glories of Noto — a town built in the Baroque style after a devastating earthquake in 1693, when Sicily was under Spanish rule — were incomparable. “We have not only Baroque architecture but also nature reserves, ancient necropolises, Roman mosaics, superb olive oil and wines, almond trees and citrus fruits,” he said.

Enzo Moscuzza, a protest leader, said: “The damage to Noto’s image has already been done. People have made huge investments here in vineyards and organic farming — now it is all in jeopardy.”

“This land must not be profaned,” the Bishop of Noto, Monsignor Giuseppe Malandrino, declared. “We have slept for centuries, but we have finally woken up. We must protect the blessings the Lord has given us.”

The decision to allow drilling reverses a move two years ago by Fabio Granata, then in charge of culture, to stop the project after initial soundings began in 2004.

Nicola Piazza, Panther Oil’s representative in Italy, said that Italian companies were already active in Sicily, where 10 per cent of Italian oil is refined. Panther co-operated fully with archaeologists and conservationists and had promised to give 7 per cent of profits for local infrastructure, he said. Mr Smitherman said that the company was interested mainly in methane gas. The project posed “no risk to the Unesco heritage sites”, he said. “We are only drilling on land used for grazing.”

Nello de Pasquale, the Mayor of nearby Ragusa, who favours the drilling, said that it would create badly needed employment. “We have had oil wells in Sicily for half a century and they have never caused pollution,” he said.

However, thousands of local people have demonstrated against the decision. Mr Camilleri said that the go-ahead followed “typically Italian behind-the-scenes political manoeuvring, in which the economically strongest have prevailed over those who value the environment”. The oilmen had been given “carte blanche to destroy everything that is best about Sicily for the sake of a moneymaking operation that will make a few people rich”, he said. The move was a “mortal blow” to tourism just as it had begun to revive after the cathedral’s restoration.

Mr Granata — now Deputy Mayor of Siracusa — said: “This is not just about safeguarding monuments and the landscape. Outside economic interests are imposing a model of industrial development on us which is at odds with our aims in tourism and culture.”

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