Small Church of Saint Anne (Alcamo)

Chiesetta di Sant'Anna (Church of Saint Anne)

The façade
Basic information
Location Alcamo, Province of Trapani, Italy
Rite Catholic
Municipality Alcamo
Territory Alcamo
State Italy
Province province of Trapani
Region Sicily
Patron Saint Anne

The small Church of Saint Anne is a Catholic Church located in Alcamo, in the province of Trapani.

Historical hints

According to Ignazio de Blasi, an historian from Alcamo, they built a little church in honour of Saint Anne, the Virgin Mary’s mother, in the south suburb of the town

The first time it was called a chapel dates back to a notorial deed in 1582; De Blasi affirms that, on 15th January 1653, the baron Francesco Triolo received by Pope Innocentius X the licence to transform the chapel into a Church, and adds that its roof had been collapsed for several years.[1]

The Church was reconstructed after 1845: among the registered possessions of the baron Benedetto Triolo in the same year, there was only a building “with a room on the ground-floor and two on the first floor, a millstone and a warehouse in that district.

The two brothers, Stefano and Giuseppe Triolo, patriots of the revolutionary uprisings in 1848 and 1860, were buried there; according to the historians’ assertions, confirmed by the documents of that period, the three brothers did everything possible for the attainment of the unity of Italy, both by conspiracy and a great financial support.[2]

In 1954 the municipal authorities were forced to wall up the entrance door because of the bad state of neglect in which it was at that time: actually vandals had removed the marble gravestones with the epigraphs of the famous brothers.[1]

The Church

In 1960 the pharmacist Marianna Raccuglia, signor Manno’s widow, and her children gave ‘’the small Church of Sant'Anna, closed to service at that time and containing the bodies of the heroic brothers Stefano and Giuseppe of the barons Sant'Anna to the town municipality, subject to their right of property resulting from the contract of sale drawn up on 6 April 1948 by the notary Mistretta Antonino, registered in Alcamo at n°1746, with the express and provided that the municipality will restore this chapel within 6 months, and take care of it in order to make accessibile the graves of the heroic brothers Sant’Anna to visitors.[1]

The committee for the celebrations of the first Centenary of the unity of Italy, had the Church restored and built two memorial stones with the inscriptions, composed by Monsignor Tommaso Papa, to commemorate the two Triolo brothers into a wall, and three other on the floor with their names: Benedetto, Stefano and Giuseppe.[1]

In the eighties the Salesian Fathers used this Church for liturgical use for the believers in the quarter; for a few months, in 1985, it was also used by Father Benedetto Cottone, the parson of the Church of Jesus Christ the Redeemer, before having larger premises in via Kennedy, and later in the new Church completed in 2006.

At present the Church is used, for liturgical use, by the group of the Divine Mercy.

Works

From a notorial deed, dating back to 1880, signed by the baron himself, there is an inventory of the small Church and sacristy of Saint Anne. Apart some vestments and furnishings, there were:

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Carlo Cataldo, Accanto alle aquile: Il castello alcamese di Bonifato e la chiesa di S. Maria dell’Alto p.108-110, Palermo, Brotto, 1991.
  2. ↑ Carlo Cataldo, La Casa del Sole- storia, folklore e cultura di Sicilia p.232, Alcamo, Campo, 1999.

Sources

See also

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