The bell tower was begun towards the year 1580 (the
biggest bell dates) and probably in that period there was a new church
lengthening in the part that today which constitutes the apse. Of the primitive structure remained only the ogival side door, the one
light windows up to roof level and the niches of the altars bent towards
the outside. The new widening and the building of the bell tower caused
the rearrangement of the inside which, in the same period, was adorned of
those frescos rediscovered during a restoration of 1984. What remains, even in the gaiety of the colors and drawings, highlights
with simplicity and immediacy a Paleo-Christian character with tales of
exemplary lives and of martyrs. During a last renovation, between 1780
and 1788, the outside architecture of the church was completely drawn
again giving new forms to the building, cleaner and regular. The
architecture of nineteenth-century style, from the clean and linear
forms, was hiding, and partly still hides, the signs of remaking
that have cancelled the primitive ancient structure.
The inside of the church The inside of the church today is a
rectangular hall with chorus (on the entry) and apse, articulated by the
minor altars. At the entry a big arch supports the chorus vault. On the side walls the niches of the minor altars alternate between the
pillars and show above a lunetted double shutter frame. To the right there are the altars of S. Placido, of Maria SS. of the
Soccorso, of S. Francesco; to the left those of Santa Lucia, and the Crucifix. Above the major altar, the most ancient, the picture of the Visitation of
unknown author of Palermo (gift of the Venerable Ignazio Capizzi). |

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