The church of Saint Lucia
The Church and the Cistercian convent dedicated to St. Lucia had a prominent place in worship citizen, because of its location in the heart of Ortigia and especially for the feast of St. Lucia in May, set up in memory of a miraculous intervention (still celebrated on the first Sunday of May) of the patron during the famine of 1646, when Santa would bring two ships loaded with grain in the port, interrupting the long hunger of the Syracusans, that “tell fames” that had made the people suffer, as the plaque existing in the church below the choir of nuns. St. Lucia to the Abbey seems built in two different styles: the bottom is in the manner of Picherali, with beautiful reliefs of coats of arms Spanish as it was before the ascent to the throne of Philip V in 1705, while the decoration of the upper is a kind of variant of rococo reminiscent of the wooden panels so frequent in the sacristy of Sicily. Reliefs of the same style adorn the facade of Palazzo Borgia. A different form of almost rococo can be seen in the capitals of the octagonal temple of St. Lucia to the tomb. The style is quite unusual in Sicily: the only similarity seems to offer reliefs in the spandrels dell’Olivella former cloister, now the National Museum, in Palermo.
Facade
The church has a tall (m. 25) consists of Ionic pilasters, the entablature which consists of a balcony enclosed by an elaborate railing goose breast. Portal with broken pediment supported by spiral columns with high pedestal is decorated with a frame containing rays, which are placed on a column, a sword, a palm tree and a crown, symbols of martyrdom of St. Lucia. On the sides, enclosed in frames, coats of arms of kings of Spain topped by crowns. On the top of an iron cross removed because it was unsafe.
Internal
For unique collection classroom, it is typical of monastic churches. In time a fervent century fresco with the “Triumph of St. Lucia.” Behind the altar there is a “Martyrdom of St. Lucia”, painted intensely narrative Deodato Guinaccia
