Church of Saints Paul and Bartholomew, Baroque church building in Alcamo, Italy.
The Church of Saints Paul and Bartholomew has a Latin cross plan with three naves, each with its own door on the facade. The naves are divided by two rows of four monolithic red marble columns from Monte Bonifato, set on quadrangular bases. The facade follows a 1782 design by Emanuele Cardona and carries two bell towers with four bells weighing 20 quintals in total.
The church was built in 1615 replacing an earlier hospital that once stood on the same site. Its facade took its present form much later in 1782, marking the end of a long building process.
The church is named after Saints Paul and Bartholomew, and the altarpiece in the apse is a canvas of the two saints painted by Giuseppe Felice in 1701. In the chapel of the Madonna del Miele hangs a painting of the Madonna dating from about 1300, the oldest painting in Alcamo, attributed to Barnaba da Modena and brought here from the church of Santa Maria della Stella.
The church stands at the end of Corso VI Aprile, the street once called Corso Imperiale, where Don Adamo Morfino's hospital and chapel were first built in 1533. The facade has two bell towers holding four bells weighing 20 quintals in total; the left tower, seen from outside, once carried a copper clock, replaced by a steel one in 1846 and removed in 1910. Three doors on the facade correspond to the three naves, so enter by the central one for the full view of the interior.
In the chapel of the Madonna del Miele hangs a painting of the Madonna dating from about 1300, the oldest painting in Alcamo, attributed to Barnaba da Modena and brought here from the church of Santa Maria della Stella, the town's first mother church.
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