Former Monastery and Church of Santa Caterina
The Church that survived urban demolitions
The monumental complex today consists of the church around which the sixteenth-century monastery was built. The facade, made of rough stone, is defined by sturdy corner pilasters and topped by a simple cornice. It frames the entrance portal, surmounted by a lintel and a window with a grate. Access is via a staircase with an isosceles layout that connects the street level to the floor of the nave. On the lateral side of the building, traces remain of the arches and their vaults that collapsed due to execution or measurement errors, which were part of a preliminary expansion plan for the church. In the early 1900s, there were plans to construct new premises to house large chambers used by the Pietro Caruso Hospital, but this project was never realized.
The former Monastery and the Church of Santa Caterina
The original structure of the entire complex was quite extensive: it stretched along Corso Umberto from the current Palazzo della Banca Sicana to Via Roma, including the present-day Piazza della Vittoria (adjacent to the church). It comprised the monastery (on the left wing), the church (in its central part), and on the right, the cloister adjacent to Via del Mercato (now Via Roma) and at the rear, extending to Via Telegrafo. The inauguration of the 16th-century complex saw the arrival of Sister Maria Ludovica Bufalo from the monastery of Sciacca, who became the first Abbess of the new monastery in Sambuca. In 1721, the marriage of Prince Pietro Beccadelli of Bologna Reggio, Marquis of Sambuca, to Donna Marianna Gravina Lucchesi was celebrated here. To honor this event, Sister Virginia Casale di Rocca Menna, a nun from the Collegio di Maria in Sambuca, created delicious sweets filled with blancmange, chocolate drops, and candied fruit, named "Minni di vergini" (virgin's breasts) due to their shape—a true masterpiece of Sambuca pastry from the 1700s. The monastery and church enjoyed particularly flourishing periods, thanks also to the patronage of the illustrious Don Pietro Beccadelli, enriching themselves with extraordinary revenues, paintings, fresco cycles, and artworks. However, in 1866, with the enactment of the suppressive laws of the young Kingdom of Italy and the suppression of religious corporations, the monastery was first taken over by the Fund for Worship. Later ceded to the Municipality, it was partly used as a girls' elementary school and partly as housing for surviving nuns. Eventually, in 1907, it was abandoned by the last elderly nun. In 1927, the part of the monastic building to the right of the church was entirely demolished: the large meeting room, the beautiful reception hall on the ground floor, the vast dormitory of the nuns on the upper floor, the grand cloister, and a small garden with a cistern surrounded by high walls on Via Telegrafo were lost. In that area, the floor of the destroyed building was used to create Piazza della Vittoria in 1929, with the Monument to the Fallen in the Great War. The surviving wing of the monastery was first used as municipal offices and a rectory, and then, in 2023, it became the seat of the Gianbecchina Art Gallery "Istituzione Gianbecchina".
An imposing religious complex on Strata Granni
The original structure of the entire complex was quite extensive: it stretched along Corso Umberto from the current Palazzo della Banca Sicana to Via Roma, including the present-day Piazza della Vittoria (adjacent to the church). It comprised the monastery (on the left wing), the church (in its central part), and on the right, the cloister adjacent to Via del Mercato (now Via Roma) and at the rear, extending to Via Telegrafo. The inauguration of the 16th-century complex saw the arrival of Sister Maria Ludovica Bufalo from the monastery of Sciacca, who became the first Abbess of the new monastery in Sambuca. In 1721, the marriage of Prince Pietro Beccadelli of Bologna Reggio, Marquis of Sambuca, to Donna Marianna Gravina Lucchesi was celebrated here. To honor this event, Sister Virginia Casale di Rocca Menna, a nun from the Collegio di Maria in Sambuca, created delicious sweets filled with blancmange, chocolate drops, and candied fruit, named "Minni di vergini" (virgin's breasts) due to their shape—a true masterpiece of Sambuca pastry from the 1700s. The monastery and church enjoyed particularly flourishing periods, thanks also to the patronage of the illustrious Don Pietro Beccadelli, enriching themselves with extraordinary revenues, paintings, fresco cycles, and artworks. However, in 1866, with the enactment of the suppressive laws of the young Kingdom of Italy and the suppression of religious corporations, the monastery was first taken over by the Fund for Worship. Later ceded to the Municipality, it was partly used as a girls' elementary school and partly as housing for surviving nuns. Eventually, in 1907, it was abandoned by the last elderly nun. In 1927, the part of the monastic building to the right of the church was entirely demolished: the large meeting room, the beautiful reception hall on the ground floor, the vast dormitory of the nuns on the upper floor, the grand cloister, and a small garden with a cistern surrounded by high walls on Via Telegrafo were lost. In that area, the floor of the destroyed building was used to create Piazza della Vittoria in 1929, with the Monument to the Fallen in the Great War. The surviving wing of the monastery was first used as municipal offices and a rectory, and then, in 2023, it became the seat of the Gianbecchina Art Gallery "Istituzione Gianbecchina".
The events of the Monastery
The Church and Monastery of Santa Caterina were inaugurated with the appointment of Suor Maria Ludovica Bufalo, sent from the Monastery of Sciacca, as the first Abbess of the new Sambuca monastery. In 1721, the church hosted the marriage of Prince Pietro Beccadelli di Bologna Reggio, Marquess of Sambuca, to Donna Marianna Gravina Lucchesi. In honor of this event, Suor Virginia Casale di Rocca Menna, a nun from the Collegio di Maria di Sambuca, created exquisite sweets filled with biancomangiare, chocolate drops, and candied pumpkin, called "Minni di vergini" (virgin's breasts), a true masterpiece of 18th-century Sambucese pastry. The monastery and church experienced a period of great prosperity, largely due to the patronage of the illustrious Don Pietro Beccadelli. They were enriched with substantial revenues, paintings, fresco cycles, and works of art. However, in 1866, following the enactment of the Italian unification laws and the suppression of religious orders, the monastery was first seized by the Fondo per il Culto (Fund for Worship). It was later ceded to the municipality, with parts of it converted into a girls' elementary school and housing for the remaining nuns. By 1907, the last elderly nun had also departed, leaving the monastery abandoned. In 1927, the portion of the monastic building to the right of the church was completely demolished. This demolition resulted in the loss of the large parlatory, the beautiful reception hall on the ground floor, the vast dormitory for the nuns above, the grand cloister, and a small garden with a cistern surrounded by high walls on Via Telegrafo. In the space where the building once stood, the Piazza della Vittoria was created in 1929, featuring the Monument to the Fallen of the Great War. The surviving wing of the monastery was initially repurposed as municipal offices and a rectory and was later, in 2023, transformed into the Pinacoteca “Istituzione Gianbecchina.”
A masterpiece, triumph of Sambucese baroque
The church features a single nave divided into four bays, with four marble altars along the sides. In the 17th century, it was adorned with elaborate stucco decorations, one of the early works of the Palermitan sculptor Vincenzo Messina, a student of the Serpotta, who moved to Sambuca in the mid-17th century after marrying a local woman but also remained active in Palermo. The flooring, made of Burgio majolica, dates back to the second half of the 18th century. On the vault, the fresco by the Capuchin Fra’ Felice depicts the “Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine.” The church's artistic heritage includes two holy water fonts in white stone and red marble on either side of the large arch of the cantoria at the back of the church—closed by a series of grilles with a large fan-shaped grille above. It also features two 17th-century wooden statues representing Saint Catherine of Alexandria and the Madonna of the Goldfinch, crafted by Fra’ Innocenzo da Petralia, as well as a Madonna with Child seated with Saint Anne and Saint Joachim, a Flemish school piece inspired by Rubens (now exhibited in the Sacred Art Museum at the nearby Church of the Purgatory). Along the church's perimeter, the “gelosie” (lattice screens) used to conceal the cloistered nuns attending services are still visible. These recall the monumental fan-shaped grille in the choir. The church's walls are richly decorated with caryatids on columns, candelabras, cartouches, shells, frames, crowns, shafts, festoons, garlands, brackets, pinnacles, pendants, putti, cherubs, large panels, curls, volutes, coats of arms, and finely detailed phytomorphic motifs in acanthus leaf designs. In the main chapel of the presbytery, the major altar stands out, adorned with a canvas—a copy of the original 18th-century altarpiece by Fra’ Felice da Sambuca, which was lost in 1985. It depicts Saint Benedict and the glorification of Don Pietro Beccadelli, Marquis of Sambuca, who endowed and enriched the monastery and church with income and artworks. It is flanked by two valuable stucco statues—Saint Mauro Abbot and Saint Placido Monk, co-founders of the Benedictine order—and topped by God the Father, who descends into the presbytery surrounded by angels and musicians, following the classic decorative scheme. In the first bay, beside the first two altars, four caryatids support the entablature: these four statues represent the Allegory of the Four Virtues and frame, on the right, the Altar of Saint Catherine with a scene of the saint’s martyrdom embedded on the frontal; on the left, an altar with a small painting of the Virgin. Severely damaged by the devastating earthquake of 1968, the church has only recently completed the restoration work that began in the 1990s and was suspended for decades.
