The building was already under construction at the end of the 16th century and was built on the outskirts of the city at that time. Although the exterior appears austere, enlivened only by a small brick bell tower, the interior of the Church of St. Francis is adorned with sumptuous stucco decorations featuring late Baroque motifs, culminating in the spectacular main altar. Here, two pairs of columns frame the niche containing the statue of St. Francis and are connected at the top by large volutes around the Franciscan symbol (the arm of Christ crossing that of the saint). This composition is very reminiscent of the Church of the College of Mary, completed in 1774, and it is possible to hypothesise that the same craftsmen worked on both buildings.<\/p>\n
The altars flanking the church\u2019s single nave contain several works of art, among which we draw attention to the painting of the Holy Mother of Light; the work bears the date 1757 and can be attributed to the workshop of Gaetano and Antonio Mercurio, authors of the canvas with the same subject kept in the church of San Rocco in Motta d\u2019Affermo. Another interesting 18th-century canvas, rare as an iconographic subject, \u00e8 that of the Transit of St. Joseph, depicting the death of the saint, assisted by Jesus and Mary, under the gaze of God the Father and the Holy Spirit.<\/p>\n
In addition to the wooden statue of St. Anthony of Padua from the late eighteenth century, mention should still be made of the fine Madonna and Child from the destroyed Church of the Most Holy Savior attached to the Mount of Piet\u00e0 the sculpture is based on Gaginian models and can be dated to the mid-sixteenth century and referred to the workshop of Diego Ingutierrez or the same master.<\/p>\n
The small oratory at the back of the church, currently used as a sacristy, is characterized by its stucco decoration and extensive frescoes on the walls (in a mediocre state of preservation), as well as by its floors with majolica-tiled terracotta tiles; the confraternity of St. Francis used to meet in this place, as can be inferred from the minutes of the pastoral visit of Don Biagio Proto in 1634, which refer to a \u00abcongregatio laiicorum, qui utuntur saccis ex tela et mozzetta lanae\u2026\u00bb.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Adorned with late Baroque motifs, the Church of St. Francis in Geraci Siculo has ancient origins<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":238342,"template":"","village-conntection":[50712],"what-to-see-region-and-provinces":[76203,76196],"what-to-see-category":[30159],"class_list":["post-311456","what-to-see","type-what-to-see","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","village-conntection-geraci-siculo","what-to-see-region-and-provinces-palermo-en","what-to-see-region-and-provinces-sicily","what-to-see-category-place-of-cult"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.e-borghi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/what-to-see\/311456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.e-borghi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/what-to-see"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.e-borghi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/what-to-see"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.e-borghi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/what-to-see\/311456\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.e-borghi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/238342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.e-borghi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"village-conntection","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.e-borghi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/village-conntection?post=311456"},{"taxonomy":"what-to-see-region-and-provinces","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.e-borghi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/what-to-see-region-and-provinces?post=311456"},{"taxonomy":"what-to-see-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.e-borghi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/what-to-see-category?post=311456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}