Overview
On one side of Piazza Vittorio Emanuele, but also facing the small Piazza Scelfo, the church of San Francesco d'Assisi looks like a fortress between inclined walls on top of a cliff of rock. The sturdy bell tower at the front could very well be that of a 15th-century castle: indeed, before becoming a bell tower, it may actually have been a lookout point. San Francesco has been standing here for five or six centuries, with its vast former monastery overlooking the cliff behind it: the convent building had previously been one of the Chiaramonte family's residences, while today it houses the Sala Cerere for municipal events throughout the centuries in what has been an overlapping of buildings, ownerships and events. Here too, as is almost always the case in the historical churches of Enna, the obligatory route to the entrance is a flight of steps: this time, however, the steps are not landscaped into the street, but lateral and internal to the complex. Inside, there is a single nave, and in the presbytery, we discover 17th-century frescoes, a wooden cross painted in the 15th century, and an Adoration of the Magi attributed to a 16th-century painter: a Flemish immigrant to Sicily, who perhaps moved to find work but probably also because of the charm of the place.
Piazza Antonio Scelfo, 94100 Enna EN, Italia
