Description
The Basilica of San Francesco d'Assisi is one of Palermo's great Gothic churches, in the Kalsa, not far from Corso Vittorio Emanuele. It has held the title of minor basilica since 1924, and among its sixteen chapels you can read Sicilian art from the fourteenth to the eighteenth century.
The facade dates from the fourteenth century, with three portals. The central one has a zigzag frame over three orders of columns and is topped by the rose window, rebuilt in the twentieth century. Inside are three vaulted aisles and original Gothic mullioned windows, with a trussed roof over the central nave.
The most famous piece is the Mastrantonio Chapel, by Francesco Laurana and Pietro de Bonitate (1468-1469): it bursts in with the first forms of the Sicilian Renaissance in a setting that is still late Gothic.
Along the nave you'll find the Franciscan Virtues, ten stucco statues from 1723, considered among the finest works of Giacomo Serpotta. The Chapel of the Immaculate Conception is clad in seventeenth-century polychrome marbles, and its vaults are decorated with stuccoes and frescoes by Pietro Novelli.
Don't miss the Portal of San Ranieri (1503-1505), with eight scenes from the saint's life, and the high relief of Saint George and the Dragon by Antonello Gagini, which recalls the Genoese community.
The great families and foreign communities, Genoese and Pisans included, vied to have a chapel here. The church also hosted extraordinary sessions of the Sicilian Parliament, in 1518 and 1531.
Its history was a troubled one. The Franciscans arrived in Palermo while Saint Francis was still alive, and were driven out by the local clergy. In 1239 Emperor Frederick II, in a quarrel with the pope, had their convent destroyed.
Work resumed in 1255. The 1235 convent had used a ruined tower, the Maniace, as its bell tower. In 1943 came the bombs, which tore open the aisles and apses: the long reconstruction stripped away the nineteenth-century layers and gave the church back its medieval face.
The facade dates from the fourteenth century, with three portals. The central one has a zigzag frame over three orders of columns and is topped by the rose window, rebuilt in the twentieth century. Inside are three vaulted aisles and original Gothic mullioned windows, with a trussed roof over the central nave.
The most famous piece is the Mastrantonio Chapel, by Francesco Laurana and Pietro de Bonitate (1468-1469): it bursts in with the first forms of the Sicilian Renaissance in a setting that is still late Gothic.
Along the nave you'll find the Franciscan Virtues, ten stucco statues from 1723, considered among the finest works of Giacomo Serpotta. The Chapel of the Immaculate Conception is clad in seventeenth-century polychrome marbles, and its vaults are decorated with stuccoes and frescoes by Pietro Novelli.
Don't miss the Portal of San Ranieri (1503-1505), with eight scenes from the saint's life, and the high relief of Saint George and the Dragon by Antonello Gagini, which recalls the Genoese community.
The great families and foreign communities, Genoese and Pisans included, vied to have a chapel here. The church also hosted extraordinary sessions of the Sicilian Parliament, in 1518 and 1531.
Its history was a troubled one. The Franciscans arrived in Palermo while Saint Francis was still alive, and were driven out by the local clergy. In 1239 Emperor Frederick II, in a quarrel with the pope, had their convent destroyed.
Work resumed in 1255. The 1235 convent had used a ruined tower, the Maniace, as its bell tower. In 1943 came the bombs, which tore open the aisles and apses: the long reconstruction stripped away the nineteenth-century layers and gave the church back its medieval face.