Piazza Neglia

It is always a stroll along the axis of Via Roma through the entire historic centre of Enna that leads one to find, after the cathedral and the airy Piazza Vittorio Emanuele, the charming and historic square named after Francesco Paolo Neglia: the municipal theatre is also named after this nineteenth–twentieth-century composer and conductor. The mermaids on the fountain in the centre are a recent local work, but they seem to have settled well between the imposing bell tower of the church of San Tommaso and the baroque doorway of the Anime Sante del Purgatorio (Church of the Holy Souls) between which they have come to rest. Until a few decades ago, the square was itself called San Tommaso, with the church's bell tower having originally been one of the city's defensive towers and its fifteenth-century portico in the Gothic-Catalan style not uncommon in Enna: inside the church, the high altar is adorned with an early 16th-century marble altarpiece. The Anime Sante, on the other hand, is a somewhat more recent building, dating from the late 17th century: upon entering, one discovers remarkable 18th-century stuccoes and frescoes by Flemish craftsmen in the vault.