Built in the mid-nineteenth century, it stands in a square called the Piazza Santa Maria della Neve and is dedicated to the Madonna of the Snow (in Italian: Madonna della Neve; also, Our Lady of the Snows, Nostra Signora della Neve), the patron saint of Nuoro, whose cult is closely linked to the Santa Maria Maggiore basilica in Rome.

[2] Buo judged the ancient church to be too small to serve as a permanent cathedral and ordered it to be pulled down, to make way for a new one.

[6] The foundation stone was laid on 12 November 1836, shortly after Charles Albert of Sardinia had declared Nuoro to be a city.

The West front recalls a classical temple, with four half-columns of granite which have Ionic capitals and support a triangular tympanum.

[11] In the first chapel on the right of the nave is the baptismal font and a statue of St John the Baptist, elements re-used from the previous church.

In the vaulting of this chapel, traces survive of a fresco made by Antonio Carboni, partly hidden by later plaster dating from the early 20th century.

[14] On 29 August of each year since then, the Cathedral's congregation has made a pilgrimage to the statue of the Redeemer on top of Ortobene.