Mother Church in Acquedolci
The Church of Santa Maria Assunta is the mother church of Acquedolci. The church is the seat of the Parish of San Benedetto il Moro, the patron saint of the city.
It was built in 1928 on a small hill known as Cruzzuluddu and was built following a landslide which, on the 8th January 1922, destroyed the ancient and homonymous Mother Church of San Fratello. Its construction is part of a larger urban project which also includes Piazza Libertà, the work of Giovanni Giordano, a student of the architect. Ernesto Basile.
The monumental Renaissance style façade is divided into two orders: on the first row we find pilasters with capitals in Ionic style, on the second in Corinthian style. The building is crowned by a large pediment, whose notched frame with bracket decorations encloses the tympanum, surmounted by the wrought iron cross.
The canonical palace is annexed to the church, characterized by a high bell tower which also acts as a civic tower . The Bell Tower, with a copper spire, equipped with a mechanical clock, wind vane and lightning rod, represents an identity symbol of Acquedolci.
The interior, divided into three naves, features elegant plaster decorations with composite capitals adorned with cherubs holding up the frame adorned with a succession of bas-reliefs with floral motifs and angels. The decorations of the central nave are characteristic of Sicilian Liberty which inherited typical elements of Baroque art.
Among the works kept inside the church, of notable artistic value are: the eighteenth-century wax statue of the dormitotio Mariae of the Palermo school, covered with regal robes embroidered in gold thread and kept on the marble altar of San Benedetto ; the ancient baptismal font in white marble which constitutes the central part of the octagonal Baptistery; a rare and precious mosaic cycle by Father Marko Ivan Rupnik made with polychrome marble inlays and gold inserts; the chairs that flank the main altar and an ancient nineteenth-century pulpit in carved wood, surmounted by an elegant canopy; an eighteenth-century wooden crucifix, from the Palermo school, attributed to Ignazio Marabitti.
