Church of San Domenico in Corleone
The Church of San Domenico di Corleone , located near the soprana area, represents one of the major urban and architectural emergencies of the city.
It was built in 1554 at the behest of the Dominican fathers, next to the pre-existing convent . The structure was completed in 1638 by the will of Alessandro Scarlata of the Dominican order. For this reason the members of the same family were buried in two sarcophagi on the sides of the main altar.
The façade of the church in tuff ashlars, has double pilasters, sturdy portals, and a characteristic bell tower.
The interior of the church, in Baroque style, is divided into three naves, has eleven side altars, and retains the typical architectural plan of the seventeenth century. The wooden antependium, which morphologically recalls the façade of the building, is made up of three panels decorated with floral motifs.
Inside the church there are many paintings commissioned between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, including the canvas depicting St. Thomas Aquinas, located in the side chapel that closes the right aisle, and that of the Madonna del Rosario with the Child Jesus, attributed to Fra Felice di Sambuca, of the seventeenth century, where the Virgin is depicted surrounded by four saints of the order Dominican, including San Domenico and San Tommaso D'Aquino. On the presbytery there is also a Baroque-style organ inserted inside a wooden box equipped with a window console. The precious 17th-century inlaid and painted wooden organ was made by the two Palermitans Giovanni Caramella and Francesco D'Amari. On the sides of the altar, leaning against the walls, the two monumental tombs in mixed polychrome marble stand out. The two tombs were created by the artist Giacomo Girardo in 1630. The Dominican Fathers erected these two tombs to commemorate the benefactor who with his bequest allowed the completion of the work of the church and the convent, in fact the remains of Don are kept in the two mausoleums. Giovanni Battista Scarlata and his wife. Finally, the Lombard marble stoup in 1500 is of considerable value.
The annexed oratory of the Company, which unfortunately is currently in a poor state of conservation, preserves the elegant eighteenth-century furnishings and the statue found here of the Madonna of the Rosary with the Child Jesus of 1600.
