Church of the Immaculate or of Saint Francis to the Immaculate
The Church of the Immaculate also known by the name of St. Francis to the Immaculate, because it was previously consecrated to St. Francis of Assisi.
It is a splendid building in baroque style located near Piazza Corpaci, in the central stretch of Via della Maestranza, and also includes the adjacent Convent of the Friars Minor Conventual, in the historic center of Ortigia.
ORIGINS AND FRANCISCAN ORDER
The story of the church is emblematic of the history of the city for the interweaving of events and therefore works that have marked the structure.
The oldest foundation of the church dates back, with the title of St. Andrew, to the sixth century by Bishop Stephen, but there is no trace of it.
History tells us that a colony of Franciscans arrived in Syracuse in 1225 while Saint Francis of Assisi was still alive. They were welcomed by Bishop Bartolomeo Gasch and settled first in Resalibera district and then at the church of Sant’Andrea Apostolo, near the district of Giudecca, along the urban axis of the Maestranza.
In the mid 1300s the friars, in addition to the convent, built and enlarged the cloister and the entire church.
Traces of the fourteenth-century structure and of the remodelling of the following century remain, which have emerged from the subsequent restoration works.
The beautiful medieval portal in the presbytery, next to the high altar, and some cross vaults in the old sacristy remain. In particular, through the sacristy, you can admire part of the medieval porch unfortunately inserted in the most recent wall of the convent.
CONCEPTION AND MADONNA DEL SOCCORSO
The church changed its title at the beginning of the 16th century and was reconsecrated to the Conception and the Madonna del Soccorso. During this period the Knights of Jerusalem were housed here. They were expelled from Rhodes in 1522 and hosted in Siracusa,
moving to various churches, including that of St. Leonard, before receiving the island of Malta from Emperor Charles V in 1530.
In the 17th century, after the earthquake of 1613, the church underwent extensive restoration, which affected the entire structure, with the creation of side chapels and round arches, decorated with tempera floral motifs, of which there are still traces. Marble steps were added to the altars and the altars themselves were decorated with marble. earthquake of 1693
did not cause serious damage, but from 1762 were made extensive structural and architectural changes, interesting both the church and the convent, of modernization to meet the changes in artistic taste of the time.
During the restorations of the eighteenth century it is curious to remember the opening of a quarry in the garden to use directly the cutting stone according to a use that will be repeated in the work of many Syracuse palaces made with the beautiful local stone available on site.
Of the three original naves, only the central one was used, while the right one was adapted in the workshop and the left one was adapted and partly demolished, with the convent and a large part of the cloister incorporated in the new factories. With the law of dispossession of the ecclesiastical goods of 1866 the church, given to the cult, for the value of the decoration and the relevance in the urban context, was deprived of the convent destined to become Court of Assizes.
THE FACADE
The late-baroque facade is of particular importance and, with its lively verticalism and sinuous perspective line, emerges in a projecting form towards the modest urban space, inviting visitors to a stop to admire the architecture.
The facade, structured on two orders surmounted by the crowning plaque, was entirely built in seven years, between 1762 and 1769.
The strong convexity of the central area of the façade recalls Borromini’s architectural motifs, in particular in the broken circular pediment, in the niche with the volutes at the top of the façade and in the four obelisks.
The attribution is uncertain, since the style and type of architecture was common in the area of Arezzo. Probably it was the creation of Pompeo Picherali, Syracuse architect of the Roman school, even if the convex development is very reminiscent of the works of both Luciano Alì and Rosario Gagliardi, both very active in those years.
The lower order is marked by four pilasters that accompany the eye up to the two columns next to the portal. They end with elegant Corinthian capitals, which support the entablature curve and the broken tympanum. The pillars are decorated with splendid friezes sculpted in bas-relief, while the columns frame the central portal of the church. The latter is surmounted by a semicircular tympanum bearing a shield with the religious coat of arms of the Franciscan order: two crossed arms, the naked arm of a poor man and the arm with the habit of a friar, symbolizing the spirit of the order.
The upper order of the façade is broken by five pillars with Corinthian capitals, also decorated with bas-relief friezes. In the centre there is the elegant central curved window.
The facade culminates with a central elevation characterized by a niche that echoes the convexity of the prospectus and the window below. On the sides of the two spiral buttresses are placed four pyramidal pinnacles.
The convex development of the facade is contrasted by the regularity of the adjacent bell tower, reworked in 1876. In that year the ancient bell tower was demolished to be raised and replaced by the clock tower, in which the nineteenth-century clock from the demolished church of Sant’Andrea dei Teatini, which was originally located in the area of the current Piazza Archimede, was placed. The tower is embellished with bas-reliefs and cup-shaped pinnacles and has a beautiful mullioned window.
INTERIORS
The church presents a single central nave, decorated with frescoes and stuccoes, where the strong verticalism is accentuated thanks to the high side altars, three on each side.
The altars are characterized by rocaille decorations in which the decorative elements are shattered into the stuccoes by the creativity and liveliness of the artists.
The masters Mudanò and Caracciolo worked on the building site, under the guidance of Luciano Alì, belonging to that group of “ignored architects of the eighteenth century” that the careful and passionate research of Giuseppe Agnello has placed in the right prominence.
In addition to the rich decorations in glossy white stucco, in 1756 Giuseppe Crestadoro from Palermo frescoed the barrel vault with the Immaculate Conception surrounded by glory between St. Francis and St. Anthony.
The Franciscan church houses several devotional paintings, including the first altar on the left an eighteenth-century painting depicting the indulgence of Assisi: an altarpiece of the counter-reformed type that shows in the upper area the celestial hierarchy with the Virgin interceding towards St. Francis with the cartouche of indulgence,
Of particular importance are the canvases depicting the Twelve Apostles, seventeenth-century paintings placed on the sides of the altars of the main nave. The canvases depict in the pictorial style a strong reference to Caravaggio’s realism in Sicily, especially in the strong shadowiness of the characters, in the chromatic plasticism of the drapery and in the devotional prominence of the faces and hands, which evoke stylistic features of a high school of Arezzo.
The apostles are represented in half-length, with their attributes fixed by traditional iconography. The predominant realistic cut brings them closer to the portrait genre, in which two physiognomic models are clearly identified, even if with minimal variations, one adhering to the youthful typology and the other to that of the old bearded and canute. The works are distinguished by a high quality execution and by a monumentality of layout enhanced by the pictorial emphasis, which is expressed with light contrasts and a chromatic form, on which stand out the lacquers of red and amber tones of ochre and brown. All the elements that would seem sufficient to attribute the works to Mattia Preti, a painter well known in Sicily and nearby Malta.
The high altar in polychrome marble is surmounted by a large seventeenth-century canvas depicting a dynamic St. Andrew the Apostle, in an oval shape with a rich golden frame. It too was transferred after the fire of Sant’Andrea dei Teatini, to remember the first church that stood in this place.
On the sides of the high altar, the pointed splayed arches testify to the ancient medieval structure of the church and its presence in the axis of the Catalan-Aragonese buildings of Via della Maestranza.
The sober but elegant choir with the small pipe organ of the nineteenth century is of excellent workmanship.
The adjacent palace of the former court is the result of changes to the old Franciscan monastery, adjacent to the church. The work of transformation began in 1869 on the project elaborated by Giuseppe Ottone. The speed of the work is surprising: the first session was held the following year.
From 1875 to 1940 and after the Second World War, changes and additions to the interior of the building proliferated. The courtyard preserves surviving elements of the cloister of the monastic complex, columns with capitals of acanthus leaves developed on a high stem.
LITURGICAL LIFE
One of the episodes to remember related to the history of this church dates back to 1800. On the 8th of December, the Knights of the Order of Malta arrived in procession from their church of San Leonardo, carrying brooms to clean the church in homage to the Virgin Mary. This custom was then repeated in 1825 by Bishop Giuseppe Amorelli and for many years by various classes of students with their teachers.
After the law of suppression of the Order of Friars Minor Conventual, the church continued to be a place of worship.
Even today, in this church, on the night between 28 and 29 November, as an anticipation of the feast of the Immaculate Conception, the ancient rite of the Unveiled is celebrated. As per tradition, the band, followed by a procession, plays all night along the streets of Ortigia to warn of the religious function, in memory of the fact that once there was going to work in Antelucan time. The procession ends at three in the morning in the church of the Immaculate with the unveiling of the image of the Virgin Mary. The church is still crowded today to attend with devotion to the ancient rite.
The feast of the Immaculate Conception on 8 December was also solemnly celebrated in this church, so much so that a dispute arose with the nuns of Saint Mary who resented the fact that this feast had always been celebrated in their church. It was only at the beginning of the 20th century that it was decided to celebrate the feast in both churches.
It is possible to visit the interior of this church.
Location: Piazza Francesco Corpaci N° 5 – Isola di Ortigia – Siracusa
INFO: +39 366 489 0028
