The Church of the Santissimo Salvatore

The Church of the Santissimo Salvatore represents one of the greatest examples of Baroque art in Palermo, however its foundation is much older.

The first church was founded in the Norman era, in 1071. The first transformation of the church took place in 1528, when the ancient Norman structure took on a basilica shape, divided into three naves with side chapels.

The current conformation is the work of Paolo Amato, who in 1682 radically transformed the church. The entrance, until then on via SS. Salvatore was moved to the Cassaro, today's Via Vittorio Emanuele, the axis along which all the prestigious residences settled in that period.

The uniqueness of the church is represented by its architecture, the Beloved conceives an architecture with a stepped entrance vestibule and side columns. The single room has a Greek plan inscribed in an irregular dodecagon. The structural lock is entrusted to an elliptical dome, which can be walked through 360 ° from the outside, giving a complete view of the city.

Mixed marbles and tramischi embellish the walls of the church, a typical decoration of baroque churches. This particular technique involves the use of different types of marble "mixed" with each other in a two-dimensional game, with carved slabs (mixed marbles) and three-dimensional, with sculptures emerging from the surface (tramischi).

The heavy bombings that affected the city in 1943, during the Second World War, also hit the church: a bomb hit the dome, destroying part of the fresco and wall decorations, now reintegrated with white stucco to replace the original polychrome marbles.

For many years the church was abandoned and it was only in 1959-60, thanks to the intervention of Franco Minissi, that the church took on a new function: that of an auditorium. Intended use that, in addition to the ecclesiastical one, it still maintains today.

Map: The Church of the Santissimo Salvatore