User Reviews
MariaGrazia (3 years ago)
Majestic church with its particularly welcoming stone walls and in spite of everything warm to speak of Father Angelo who makes the homily pleasant to listen to and not even for a moment you get distracted, it does not involve you only but you travel with your mind in those places you you speak by transmitting to you all the love that only God could give us
Urdom “Urdom69” 69 (4 years ago)
The Church of Santo Spirito or dei Vespri is very old: it was built in 1178 at the behest of Archbishop Gualtiero Offamilio, the same one who soon after had the cathedral of Palermo built. The church - which is now seen isolated - was part of a monastery entrusted to the Cistercian monks. Nothing is left of the monastery. It was destroyed over the centuries while the church itself was marred by buildings that have nothing to do with the original construction. Until in 1795 the area was entrusted to the Compagnia di Sant’Orsola to build the cemetery. In addition to being a great example of Norman architecture, the Church is known for being the theater of the "Sicilian Vespers", the famous popular revolt that broke out in Palermo in 1282. In Sicily, from 1266, the Angevins, a French dynasty that had taken over to the Swabians after the defeat of Manfredi di Svevia by Charles of Anjou. The French soldiers, at the evening hour of March 31, 1282, caused offense to a woman who had just married and was just leaving that church. This was the cause that triggered the popular revolt against the Angevins that resulted in a war that lasted twenty years. The Sicilians were helped by Peter III of Aragon. In 1302, with the peace of Caltabellotta, Sicily passed from the Angevin to the Aragonese domination. The episode of the Sicilian Vespers acquired the symbolic meaning, in the view of the Risorgimento, of revolt against the foreigner. The Angevins were French and it should be remembered that Italy, still in the nineteenth century, was divided into many states and statarelli that were dominated by foreign dynasties or powers: the Bourbons in the south, the Austrians in the Lombardy-Veneto region, and so on. Therefore, the unity of Italy was to be pursued by affirming the interests of Italians against those of foreigners. In 1882, in the sixth centenary of the Sicilian Vespers, the emotional wave led to the determination to restore the complex to its original conditions. The architect Giuseppe Patricolo took care of it and led the work. In the end, of the whole complex, only the church freed from all buildings could be recovered. Exactly what we see now, with small additions, such as the large central rose window which is quite recent. The exterior shows the simple but elegant style of Norman churches with chiaroscuro decorations obtained by alternating lava stone and tuffaceous stone, contamination between the Arab-Norman and Gothic styles. The interior has the structure of a basilica with three naves, with tuff columns on which ogival arches open, simple and bare, but with such a charm as to make everything that composes it beautiful. Above the arch of the main apse, you can finally admire a beautiful wooden crucifix dating back to the first half of the 15th century.
Giuseppe Riela (4 years ago)
Famous church, from this church, the famous Sicilian Vespers broke out