Church of San Giuseppe dei Padri Teatini in Palermo
The Church of San Giuseppe dei Teatini in Palermo is located in one of the most characteristic corners of the city: the " Quattro Canti ".
The church was built starting from 1612, based on a project by the Neapolitan Theatine architect Pietro Caracciolo. This imposing religious building was born in a period of architectural and urban renewal of the city where the new religious orders played a decisive role.
The main façade of the church, which faces the most important street of the city, the ancient Cassaro, has a simple and severe aspect, typical of the neoclassical style. The facade is framed by two pilasters with Corinthian capitals and ends at the top with the architrave surmounted by a sumptuous triangular marble tympanum. The portal is bordered on the sides by a pair of coupled columns on high plinths that support the entablature with the mixtilinear tympanum. Above the portal, inside a niche, is the eighteenth-century statue of San Giuseppe by Baldassare Pampillonia.
The other façade of the church, which overlooks Piazza Pretoria, is divided vertically by the presence of very high Corinthian pilasters. that separate large windows. The top part of the façade has a long balustrade with columns with spectacular lanterns that give light to the side aisles of the church. On this facade stands the grandiose Baroque dome covered with yellow and blue majolica, the work of the architect Giuseppe Mariani.
The plan of the church is a Latin cross basilica with a transept and divided into three naves. The main nave is separated from the two side aisles by very high Corinthian monolithic columns in gray Billiemi marble.
The interior decoration is particularly sumptuous: all the ceilings are entirely frescoed; the walls and side chapels are covered with mixed marbles; the altars present elegant elaborations in semiprecious stones; even the wooden furnishings are conceived according to a calibrated Baroque decorative spirit. The vault of the central nave illustrates with seventeenth-century frescoes by Filippo Tancredi, episodes from the "life of St. Cajetan" among gilded stuccos; in the sails of the arches are the "figures of the Apostles", begun in 1798 by Giuseppe Velasquez and completed by Vincenzo Manno. The dome was painted with the "Triumph of St. Andrea d'Avellino" in 1734 by Guglielmo Borremans.
The two marble stoups, supported by stucco angels, made at the end of the 1700s by Ignazio are also of considerable value. Marabitti and Filippo Siragusa.
