Bronte's City/Monuments - The Capizzi, church of Sacred Heart

The Capizzi College

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The Capizzi college

Curch of Sacro Cuore

The church of the Sacro Cuore (Sacred Heart), placed on the Corso Umberto at the center of the Capizzi college among the ancient eighteenth - century wing and the neoclassic one.
Was wanted by the Rector Of The College Giuseppe Prestianni and built mostly on the area occupied by the ancient San Rocco chapel, mentioned in reveals of 1580 and matrimonial registers of 1589.

The construction of the edifice began in 1907 and the church was solemnly opened to the public, on November 15 the, 1914, with the blessing of the Archbishop Mons. Ferraris.

The prospect and interior decorations were performed by Ing. Sciuto Patti; the structure and architectural composition by Caselli.
Benedetto Radice in "the Historical Memories of Bronte" describes her so: "as a work of art is one of the most beautiful not only for the town but also for Sicily".

The composition and the greater height of the church in respect to the College, visually make it autonomous and emergent in the disposition of the block volumes.

In the façade, to the free and modern scansion of flat surfaces alternated by surfaces of feigned ashlars work, classical decorative elements are opposed.

The triangular architrave with broken lines of the portal is supported by two beautiful columns of lava stone set up on prismatic pedestals. Above the massive corner pilasters, the drawing of the architrave is resumed in the cornice and closes the façade up above.

A fanlike rose window in iron and colored glass, filters the light inside the church.

In the inside, the only nave is marked by two big pilasters taken again by big strips also on the vault.

The church has five altars in marble, work of Domenico Spampinato. The better one, second to the right, is dedicated to Santa Caritosa (picture painted in 1919 by Alessandro Abate).

The body of the Holy one, kept under the altar, was given to Bronte by the philosopher Nicola Spedalieri (as from his letter of July 23rd, 1973).

On the major altar, in white marble, stand out the figures in bronze of the four evangelists and two little statues of San Pietro and San Paolo.

Up above, under the cornice, the heads of ten apostles are represented.

A little curiosity: to depict the face of the Eternal Father, on the bas-relief placed on the vault above the main altar, the artist had as model one of the progenitors of the Barbaria family: Don Emanuele, born in 1833.

The cantors spot is supported by two thin little columns in cast iron.

The Church Of Sacro Cuore was mostly built on the area of the ancient San Rocco chapel, that was adjacent to the College and a small, lateral street.

The San Rocco statue, placed in a niche on the right of the major altar.

In the left part of the nave, are preserved the mortal remains of the founder of the College, the Venerable.

Ignazio Capizzi, transferred from Palermo to Bronte In April 1994.

On May 27th, 1858, Ignazio Capizzi, for his theological virtues and the fecund apostleship developed in Sicily, was declared venerable by Pius IX, that called him "the San Filippo Neri of Sicily".

The funereal monument, given by an ex collegian, the on. Marcello Dell'Utri, it is work of the sculptor Ivo Celeschi (1993).



The interior decoration of the church stands out for the redundancy of friezes and projecting stuccos of various inspirations (baroque with Renaissance and classical elements). Above on the right, the altar of Santa Caritosa with the painting by the painter from Catania Alessandro Abate; at the bottom right of the painting, the artist painted a suggestive view of Bronte and the College at the foot of Etna. The body of Santa Caritosa, donated to the Capizzi College by the Bronte philosopher N. Spedalieri in 1793, is enclosed in a statue by the sculptor from Lecce Luigi Guacci.

The paintings and statues

The first two canvases of the altars of Santa Caritosa and Sant'Antonio da Padova were painted by Alessandro Abate from Catania (1867 - 1953); followed by photos of the painting of Maria Ausiliatrice (oil on canvas, 2.85 m by 1.70 m wide, by a painter from Turin) and of San Giuseppe e Gesù Bambino (oil on canvas, 2.85 m by 1.70 m wide, painted in 1915 by «A[ngelo] La Naia / Firenze 1915») and the two statues of San Rocco and Sant'Eligio.
Placed in the two niches of the side walls of the apse are the statues of San Rocco in his typical iconography (on the left) and, on the right, of Sant'Eligio bishop of Noyon (France), patron saint of goldsmiths, blacksmiths and veterinarians. Although well made and pleasant, they have nothing ancient; are from the time of construction of the church (1904 - 1914) by the Rosa Zanazio Company of Rome.

It should be noted that while the presence of a Sant'Eligio in the traditional Bronte devotion seems strange, the one towards San Rocco, instead, has a historical explanation. The Church of the Sacred Heart was in fact erected largely on the area of an ancient Chapel dedicated to San Rocco, which since 1613 had also been the seat of the Confraternity of Maria SS. della Misericordia.

The small church stood in a side street flanked on the corner by the old part of the Capizzi College. It was demolished in 1907 to make room for the church of the Sacred Heart under construction.

The Venerable's Funeral Monument

In the left part of the nave of the church, the remains of the founder of the College, Ven. Ignazio Capizzi, are preserved, transferred from Palermo to Bronte in April 1994.

The Venerable, upon his death (September 27, 1783) was buried in the Olivella convent in Palermo; subsequently, on July 29, 1949, considering the pitiful conditions to which the convent was reduced due to the air raids of 1943, his body was buried, again in Palermo, in the church of Sapienza, annexed to the college founded by the Venerable himself.

On May 27, 1858, Ignazio Capizzi, for his theological virtues and the fruitful apostolate carried out in Sicily, was declared Venerable by Pius IX, who defined him as the Saint Philip Neri of Sicily.

The funeral monument, donated by Fininvest on the initiative of a former collegian, the Hon. Marcello Dell'Utri (then part of the Fininvest Group), is the work of the architect and sculptor from Catania Ivo Celeschi (1993).

It represents the world, torn and upset by marginalization, injustice, violence, on which, from an open seed, a high cross sprouts and rises, a sign of hope and justice. It bears the inscription "Bronte - to the founder of the Real Collegio that boasts his name - A.D. 1993".

Another inscription engraved almost hidden at the base of the monument, in recent decades a harbinger of violent controversy, reads "Gift of the Fininvest Group through the former student M. Dell'Utri".

The 1787 clock

The upper part of the church facade with the fan-shaped rose window and the roof; in the background you can see the old mechanical clock (installed way back in 1787); in the last photo the four weights of the original installation no longer used.
It still works and with the ringing sound of its bells for over a century it has marked every quarter of an hour the time of Bronte and the farmers scattered in the nearby countryside. Unforgettable for the people of Bronte is the long pleasant and cheerful ringing of the bells every midday.

The stained glass windows of the rose window and the windows of the church are a gift from the former Bronte undersecretary, Hon. Vito Bonsignore. To ensure that we do not forget, a phrase written in capital letters on the right side of the rose window reminds us all of this: «Vito Bonsignore generously donated in the year D. 1992».

Translated by Sam Bella