Church of Sant’Antonio in Buscemi
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The Church of Sant'Antonio in Buscemi, despite being incomplete, is one of the most beautiful Baroque churches in the Val di Noto.
The original structure, which dates back to the 17th century, was destroyed by the earthquake of 1693. The new construction it arose on the same place. The facade remained unfinished, the second order is totally missing, due to the sudden death of the designer, architect and superintendent of the construction, Vincenzo Mirabella Alagona who died in 1624 due to an accident while directing the work of a second religious structure, the church of S. Maria delle Grazie in Modica.
The facade has only the lower order. It is divided into two side sections, concave towards the inside, and from the central body, concave towards the outside and has pairs of columns in the perimeter area and two pairs of three columns with Corinthian capitals present in the central area of the facade. All the columns rest on a two-metre pedestal, and serve as decoration for the central door and the two side doors. The central door, in the form of an arch, is surmounted by a semicircular tympanum and, above this, there is a hollow window towards the inside. The side doors, in the shape of a lowered arch, are also surmounted by windows, albeit smaller than the central one. The planned but unrealized second order is replaced by a structure that supports the belfry.
The interior of the church is divided into 3 naves separated by quadrangular columns with Corinthian capitals. The interior of the church has splendid Baroque decorations, originally covered with pure gold, formed by crenellations and geometric garlands carved in bas-relief and decorated with polychrome stuccos. The altar in the central nave reproduces a small Greek temple supported by 4 columns which is dominated by the statue of Sant'Antonio da Padova.
Among the works kept inside the church of considerable artistic value is the wooden statue of Our Lady of Sorrows attributed to Filippo Quattrocchi.
In the floor, in front of the chapel, there is a trapdoor that gives access to an underground crypt, where you can observe the seats on which the bodies of the nobles were laid to proceed with the drying and subsequent mummification .
