Church of Sacred Heart in Bronte
The Church of the Sacred Heart of Bronte is located on Corso Umberto in the center of the elevation of the Capizzi College between the ancient eighteenth-century wing and the neoclassical one built in the early 1900s.
It was built in 1907, in the area where the old Chapel of San Rocco stood, at the behest of the Rector of the College Giuseppe Prestianni, based on a project by the architect Leandro Caselli. The compositional style and the greater height of the church compared to the college make it visually autonomous.
In the façade, flat surfaces alternate with surfaces in fake ashlar, moreover it is possible to notice classic decorative elements. The triangular architrave of the portal is supported by two columns made of lava stone and resting on prismatic pedestals, with a capital in white stone. A molded frame separates the first order from the second, where, in the space delimited by the two pilasters, there is a fan-shaped rose window made with colored glass, this structure filters the light inside the church. Above the rose window, the design of the architrave is taken up in the cornice that closes the elegant architectural composition.
The interior has a rectangular shape with apsidal hall, there is a single nave marked by two large pilasters with five altars in polychrome marble, the work of the marble craftsman Domenico Spampinato. In the entire church there are golden stucco decorations of Baroque inspiration. with also Renaissance and classical elements. The imposing high altar, in white marble, is surmounted by the statue of the Sacred Heart of Jesus where the bas-relief bronze figures of the four evangelists stand out and at the bottom, in the frontal, the two statuettes of St. Peter and St. Paul. High up under the cornice, the heads of the ten apostles are represented.
Of particular interest is the monument to Venerable Ignazio Capizzi, founder of the College, located on the left side of the church nave. The funeral monument, donated by a former collegiate, the Hon. Marcello Dell'Utri, is the work of the sculptor Ivo Celeschi in 1993. It represents the world, torn and upset by marginalization, injustice, violence, on which, from an open seed, a high cross sprouts and rises, a sign of hope and justice.
