Church of Santa Maria di Gesù in Collesano
The Church of Santa Maria di Gesù in Collesano, with its simple lines, houses works of considerable artistic value.
It was built in 1612 and entrusted to the Reformed Friars Minor.
It has a simple layout with a single nave, vaulted ceiling, and a fine cloister adjoining the former convent.
Internally, the church still faithfully reflects its original conformation: a high altar and six side altars, five of which date back to the 1600s.
Among the works kept in the church, of notable artistic and historical value we find: the wooden Crucifix of 1635, a documented work of friar Umile da Petralia; various seventeenth-century canvases and the Madonna with Child Jesus in marble by Carlo D'April; picture of the Porziuncola, by Gaspare Buzzetta made between 1625 and 1626; the "tabernacle-case" carved in wood dated 1763, rich in columns, mother-of-pearl inlays, a small Crucifix and five small finely carved sculptures.
The adjoining convent, now used as a library, develops around a precious seventeenth-century cloister. The cloister has 12 columns on whose capitals are the coats of arms 12 of wealthy Collesan families who donated these columns for the construction of the cloister.
