Sant'Agata al Collegio, Baroque church in Caltanissetta, Italy.
Sant'Agata al Collegio is a baroque church in Caltanissetta featuring a dramatic staircase that branches into two balustrade-lined flights approaching its front. The square interior nave is flanked by four side chapels decorated with refined plasterwork.
The Jesuits were invited to Caltanissetta by Luisa Moncada and her son Francesco II, and construction of the church began in 1588 with designs by the Jesuit Alfio Vinci. It was completed in 1628 with modifications by Natale Masuccio, whose design also shaped the facade. The interior stucco was finished in 1647 by Giacomo and Giuseppe Serpotta, and the church was further embellished in later centuries.
The church takes its name from the adjacent Jesuit college, founded after Luisa Moncada and her son Francesco invited the order to Caltanissetta. The interior stucco was completed in 1647 by Giacomo and Giuseppe Serpotta, and the IHS monogram of the Jesuits recurs on the marble and painted-stucco walls. The left chapel of Sant'Anna preserves frescoes by Luigi Borremans.
The church stands at the end of Corso Umberto, where it meets via Re D'Italia, and is reached by a staircase split into two balustraded flights. In front of it stands Michele Tripisciano's bronze statue of King Umberto I, installed in 1922. The building is an active place of worship, so modest dress is appropriate.
The St Ignatius altar, designed by Giovanni Amico, is a pietra dura panel of polychrome marbles with plants and exotic birds whose names are written on white ribbons beside them. The relief attributed to Ignazio Marabitti shows the saint on the globe with gilded rays; a putto holds a book inscribed anno domini 1600, and four female figures stand for the continents then known.
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