Church of Sant'Antonio da Padova in Belpasso
The Church of Sant'Antonio da Padova and the adjacent convent in Belpasso is a religious complex known for having been a film set for various television series, such as Anti-Mafia Squad.
It was built following the arrival of the Friars Minor Observants of San Francesco d'Assisi: the works began in 1730 and were completed in 1779, as recalled by an epigraph placed at the base of a capital located in the cloister.
The façade features an elegant eighteenth-century lava stone portal and a tower crenellated bell tower.
The interior, with a single nave, has two blind arches on each side and a barrel vault. On the back wall of the presbytery you can admire the valuable wooden architectural altarpiece created at the end of the 18th century. There are also four block altars in sculpted and inlaid polychrome marble, from the end of the eighteenth century, while the main altar was lost and replaced in 1968 by another in marble. The intrados of the vault is decorated with three frescoes, works by the Acese painter Michele Vecchio, a pupil of Alessandro Vasta, dating back to the second half of the 18th century.
Among the works kept inside the church, of particular artistic value are: the altarpiece depicting the Madonna with Child among Saints in the act of offering the plenary indulgence to St. Francis of Assisi, the work of 1805 by Giuseppe Zacco; three paintings of excellent workmanship depicting "St. Anthony of Padua", the "Virgin of Sorrows" and "The Last Supper", kept in the sacristy of the church.
