Church of San Pietro in Piazza Armerina
Church of San Pietro in Piazza Armerina is an important place of worship in the city.
The church and the adjoining convent were built around the mid-1500s at the behest and expense of the citizens to honor a miraculous image of the Madonna which was kept in a small church that once stood in that same place.
The facade, in ashlars of stone, has the portal in Mannerist style.
The interior, with a single nave, has four side chapels. Of particular value is the wooden coffered ceiling dating back to the 18th century. The flooring is in local sandstone and has instead replaced the pre-existing majolica from Caltagirone, now reduced to a poor state of conservation.
Of particular artistic value are: sarcophagi dating back to the early 1600s kept in the four side chapels and marble altars and triumphal arches in mature Renaissance style. In particular, on the first altar on the left there is a marble arch of the Gaginesca school dating back to 1612 which houses a stone fresco of the Madonna delle Grazie which belonged to the previous church; on the central altar, which leads into the presbytery, there is an elegant marble holy arch also from the seventeenth century decorated with elegant inlays and sculptures.
The annexed convent, which belonged to the Friars Minor of Santa Maria di Gesù, conserves a small 16th century cloister with round arches resting on squat polystyles.
