Church of San Nicola in Agrigento
The Church of San Nicola di Agrigento , located outside the town in the immediate vicinity of the Archaeological Museum, hidden among centuries-old olive trees, is characterized by its splendid golden color given by the shell tuff, the same found in the Valley of the Temples.
The church represents one of the greatest examples of late Romanesque Cistercian architecture in Sicily. The building, built in the Norman era, was enlarged in 1219 by the Cistercian friars of Santa Maria di Adriano. The convent, on the other hand, was founded in 1426 by Blessed Matteo Cimarra, who introduced the Franciscan Observance movement to the city.
Church is characterized by an elegant access which, from a very slight slope and a wide flight of steps, leads up to the small square where it stands imposing and austere. Two buttresses surround the splendid Gothic portal characterized by five pointed arches.
The interior, with a single nave, has the rare presence of an iconostasis: a dividing structure with the function of separating the quadratum populi and the monastic part. There are four chapels in which sixteenth-century frescoes depicting figures of saints stand out, a beautiful marble statue depicting the Madonna and Child, the altar of the Sacrament and the wooden Lord, commonly known as the Lord of the Ship.
Of considerable value is the Sarcophagus of Phaedra contained in the third chapel. The sarcophagus, a marble work of inestimable value and splendid expression of Roman sculpture in Sicily, represents four episodes of the myth of Phaedra and Hippolytus.
The building and the remains of the abbey complex that extend behind it are now part of the Museum Archaeological of Agrigento.
