The present church was built by 1711, commissioned by a lay congregation of individuals with doctorates in law, medicine, or theology, as well as government officials and notaries, using designs attributed to Giovanni Battista Vaccarini. The prior chapel at the site, like most of Catania, had been razed by the 1693 earthquake. The derivation of the title "Ogninella" is complicated. A prior church in town named "Santa Maria da Ongia" had been built adjacent to the town walls. The name "Ongia" is the site north of Catania where Ulysses had putatively disembarked in Sicily during his Odyssey. Putatively the 1693 earthquake uncovered an ancient frescoed icon of the virgin near the no=longer extant Porta San Orsola in the medieval walls, that was attributed to the "Ongia" church. This icon was brought to be housed in this church. Some how the name of the church was transmuted to "Ogninella".