St. Giorgio dei Genovesi Church

The history

The Church of San Giorgio was built between 1575 and 1596 in the outer part of the neighborhood of the Lodge, just behind the pier in the new Senate Palermo had recently decided on the basis of the construction of the harbor. The choice of this location by the Genoese confirms the dominant role assumed by the community of Liguria, now sostituitasi Pisani in the banking monopoly and the main commercial activities of Sicily and the Kingdom of Naples.

The realization of the Church of San Giorgio, which is set on the existing Church of St. Luke, was entrusted to the GEORGE Piedmont of faces. The typology adopted a basilica with three naves and side chapels built-in wall thickness, indicates the intention to erect a building ambitious, economically and architectural, religious orders that only the most important and wealthiest nations, as with that of the Genoese, could be taken in the sixteenth century Palermo. By George I, not having the portico-loggia on the front, as in other contemporary churches, relies on the temple a predominantly religious role, but also put in place ecclesiastical architecture today considered the most prominent example of Renaissance architecture in Palermo. Inside the building the kiosks and marble tombstones bear witness to the competition between the richest families from Genoa to secure a prestigious award in the church of the nation.

Recently, and after restoration, were relocated in the paintings that decorated the church and acknowledged as newsagents Palermo at that time was a cosmopolitan city with a European dimension to entertaining cultural exchanges with the rest of Italy. Among them Martyrdom of St. George and the Baptism of Jesus by Jacopo Palma, portrays the Virgin of SanLuca Filippo Paladini, Martyrdom of Saint Vincent of Saragossa by Jacopo da Empoli, Madonna of the Rosary and Saints by Luca Giordano and Our Lady Queen of Genoa, JOHN Andrea De Ferrari.

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