Church of San Lorenzo in Agrigento
The Church of San Lorenzo in Agrigento , also known as Chiesa del Purgatorio , is located in Piazza Purgatorio, along the Via Atenea. The splendid monument strikes for its magnificence, for the abundance and splendor of the decorations, for the stuccos, golds and paintings.
It was built in the second half of the 18th century at the behest of the rich bourgeois expressions of the baroque style of the moment, they wanted it particularly sumptuous.
The exterior has a double staircase and a high facade divided into two orders crowned by a tympanum. The entrance portal is formed by a pair of twisted columns next to pillars with the allegorical figures of Faith and Charity on the sides. Above a medallion with the Virgin surrounded by angels. In the second order two statues of saints stand out which flank an artistic window. A bell tower completes the façade and contributes to further streamlining it.
The interior, with a single nave, has four side chapels where you can admire the Deposition and the Crucifix from the seventeenth century, while the canvas in the apse represents San Lorenzo. The stucco decorations of the nave are from the Serpottian school, while the statues, the work of Giuseppe and Giacomo Serpotta, represent the virtues: love, simplicity, charity, prudence, justice, religion, fortitude, meekness . Finally, the Chapel of the Crucifix is splendid, covered in pure gold, the work of the sculptor Pietro Carletto.
Of considerable value are the two seventeenth-century confessionals and the marble statue of the Madonna della Melograna, attributed to the Gagini school.
The San Lorenzo Church is no longer used for worship, but as a center for meetings and cultural events.
