Church of Sant'Antonio Abate in Novara di Sicilia
The Church of Sant'Antonio Abate in Novara di Sicilia is one of the most important religious buildings in the village and in it you can admire the great skill of the Novara stonemasons.
The church was built in 1400 but the works were only completed in 1600.
The facade has a portal of particular artistic value, adorned with a pointed arch in the Norman style and with two capitals on which the figures of St. Paul the Apostle and St. Anthony the Abbot are embossed. The church is flanked by an elegant bell tower formed by a laced quadrangular tower, surmounted by a spire covered in colored bricks. Its construction, begun in remote times, was completed only in 1732. Inside there is a monumental stone staircase, formed by natural blocks, which allows access to the bell housing.
The interior is divided into three naves by two rows of ten monolithic sandstone columns. The columns, capitals, arches, internal and external decorations, friezes are all in local sandstone.
The vault of the central nave hides the original roof with wooden trusses where there are shelves depicting masks and characters.< br>Among the works of greatest artistic value kept in the church we find: a seventeenth-century canvas depicting Saint Anthony the Abbot in conversation with Saint Paul of Thebes; the wooden statue of Sant'Antonio Abate attributable to 1600; the sixteenth-century statue of the statue of Santa Caterina V. M. of Alessandria.
