Church of Jesus and Maria in Monforte San Giorgio
The Church of Gesù e Maria in Monforte San Giorgio is located in the Portaterra district, near the remains of the medieval city walls, on a natural terrace overlooking the valley of the Bagheria river and the Aeolian Islands.
It was built between 1622 and 1629 by the Confraternity of the same name, founded in Monforte a few years earlier by the young priest Placido Di Pietro, which brought together the representatives of all the most important families of Monforte, first of all that of Prince Moncada, families who competed to make bequests and donations , and which thus contributed to the creation of an artistic heritage of great importance.
The interior with a single nave has valuable altars which have maintained their original simple appearance in tempera painted stone covered with finely crafted frontals: one in wood belonging to the Ecce Homo altar, dating back to the second half of the 18th century, and a second one in silk, silver threads and semi-precious stones placed d in front of the main altar, dating back to the second half of the 19th century.
Of great artistic value are the three imposing altarpieces that the Messina painter Gaspare Camarda painted at the end of the 1620s depicting "The Triumph of the Cross with Jesus and Mary", "St. Clare of Assisi" and "The Ecstasy of St. Catherine of Siena" (the latter unfortunately stolen in 1976)
. The marvelous pictorial triptych represents a program of image catechesis in the spirit of the Counter-Reformation based on the absolute centrality of the Trinity. Both the Triumph of the Cross and the Santa Chiara retain their impressive and valuable original frames from the first half of the seventeenth century in finely carved, painted and gilded wood.
Other noteworthy works are kept in the church: the polychrome wooden statue depicting Christ at the column painted by an unknown probably around the end of the seventeenth century placed in a valuable altar decorated in stucco from the very early years of the eighteenth century; a white marble statue of the Assumption by an unknown eighteenth-century sculptor; valuable liturgical vestments from the period between the 17th and 19th centuries and precious works of liturgical silverware among which the goblet by Diego Rizzo from the first half of the 17th century and the goblet by an anonymous silversmith from Messina with the symbols of the Confraternity stand out.
