Church of San Francesco di Paola
The Church of San Francesco di Paola leans against the Palazzo di Città, on the square that bears the same name at the intersection of via Cavour with via Roma. The poorly decorated façade is covered on the left by the bell tower of 1610. The structure of the bell tower without a spire is curious as it collapsed as a result of the Messina earthquake of 1908.
The church, which has been restored over the centuries, is older. An advanced body supported by a portico, built later than the rest of the building, constituted the corridor that connected the old Convent of the Paolotti (demolished to make room for the current Town Hall) to the Church Choir.
The interior of the church has a single nave with a barrel vault. On the side walls are oil paintings, which reproduce facts and miracles of the Saint of Charity: Saint Francis at the Court of the King of Naples, Saint Francis frees a prisoner, Saint Francis heals a cripple, Battle between Turks and Christians and the apparition of Saint Francis .
On the vault of the nave in stucco frames, the whole interior is rich in Baroque stuccoes, there are three frescoes: St. Francis raises a dead man, Apotheosis of St. Francis, St. Francis raises a pilgrim.
The fresco in the dome of the apse describes the vision of St. Francis.
The church of San Francesco di Paola is a small jewel of the Sicilian Baroque.
The paintings of the Franciscan cycle, falsely attributed to Giacinto Platania, are by different authors and belong to the second half of the eighteenth century. The church in fact underwent extensive radical restorations to the factories and the vault in 1775-78.
At the main altar is a nineteenth-century painting with Saints; the four side altars are the statues of Sant'Alfio and San Filippo d'Agira, the bust of San Francesco di Paola; finally celebrated the Madonna of Loreto in marble, on which time has spread a very light patina of amber yellow, which gives the figure the mystical purity of beeswax. It is a work of immense artistic value attributed, with good observations, to Domenico Gagini.
In the same church the two polychrome marble altars, the main one and that of San Francesco, from the XNUMXth century, are a happy example of the skill and baroque taste of the Catania marble masters of the time.
During the past centuries, the painters Salvatore Mignemi, Giuseppe Grasso and Antonio Freri and the marble workers Biondo from Catania and Siragò from Taormina worked in the Church of San Francesco.
On a wooden choir loft, there is another pipe organ “Giacomo Locatelli di Bergamo, dated 1902, smaller in size than that of the Mother Church.
In the church of San Francesco you can admire the splendid baptismal font and at the entrance, the door with bronze tiles, with scenes from the life of the Saint of Paola, created by the sculptor Salvatore Incorpora.
(Text source: https://comune.linguaglossa.ct.it/)
Card insertion: Ignazio Caloggero
Photo: Google
Information contributions: Ignazio Caloggero / Web
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