Church of San Francesco d'Assisi
A seventeenth-century Franciscan church crowned by a dome
The Church of San Francesco d'Assisi in Trapani is a seventeenth-century Franciscan church designed by Bonaventura Certo, distinguished by its large dome and stucco sculptures.
Key facts
Site type:
Comune:
Church
District:
Historic centre
The Church of San Francesco d'Assisi stands in Trapani's historic centre, where the Franciscans established a religious community during the thirteenth century. The present building largely dates from a seventeenth-century reconstruction of the medieval church and adjoining convent, which for centuries formed an important centre of religious life in the city.
The rebuilding was initiated by the Franciscan Giuseppe Napoli senior and continued by his nephew, Giuseppe Napoli junior. The project was entrusted to Fra Bonaventura Certo, a Franciscan architect from Messina, who transformed the earlier church into a substantially larger building, completed in 1638. The church has a Latin-cross plan, with a single nave, lateral chapels, a transept and a large dome supported by four substantial piers. The façade is articulated by Tuscan pilasters, while the interior combines classical architectural forms with an elaborate decorative programme. Among its most significant features are stucco statues representing moral virtues and Franciscan popes, some of which are attributed to the Trapani sculptor Cristoforo Milanti.
Following the suppression of religious corporations in 1866, the convent ceased to serve its original purpose. The Franciscan Conventuals returned to officiate the church in 1925, when it also became a parish. The church continues to serve a religious function and bears witness to the long presence of the Franciscan Order in Trapani.
Photo: Andrey Khrobostov, Alamy
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The medieval Franciscan foundation
The Franciscan presence in Trapani dates to the thirteenth century. According to the historical account published by the Friars Minor Conventual, the foundation of the community is attributed to Fra Angelo Tancredi da Castrovillari, sometimes confused in historical sources with other Franciscans of the same name.
The first settlement developed beside a small church dedicated to Santa Maria degli Egiziaci, also known as Santa Caterina, with a convent subsequently established alongside it.
A later inscription preserved in the church records an enlargement of the original building in 1272, during the period when Saint Bonaventure was Minister General of the Franciscan Order. The seventeenth-century reconstruction substantially altered the medieval complex.
Bonaventura Certo and the seventeenth-century rebuilding
The reconstruction was the culmination of a programme initiated by Giuseppe Napoli senior, who died in 1627, and continued by his nephew Giuseppe Napoli junior.
Fra Bonaventura Certo, originally from Messina, was active as an architect in Trapani during the first half of the seventeenth century. His work also included the reconstruction of San Lorenzo, now Trapani Cathedral.
At San Francesco, Certo employed a classical architectural vocabulary, with substantial Tuscan pilasters, carefully ordered wall surfaces and restrained decoration. An inscription records the completion of the church on 3 October 1638.
In his 1825 guide to Trapani, Giuseppe Maria Di Ferro praised the building's proportions and architectural simplicity. He dated Certo's intervention to around 1660, but subsequent scholarship has corrected this chronology.
The dome and interior architecture
The church's large dome rises above the crossing of the Latin-cross plan and is a prominent feature of Trapani's historic skyline. Two smaller domed towers accompany it, one associated with the clock and the other with the bells.
The interior consists of a single nave with recessed lateral chapels and a short transept. The dome rests on four substantial piers, while windows above the main cornice admit light into the nave.
These features were already described by Di Ferro in 1825, who particularly admired the proportions of the church and the relationship between its architectural elements.
Cristoforo Milanti and the Franciscan virtues
The church contains a series of stucco sculptures associated with the Trapani artist Cristoforo Milanti.
Eleven figures represent moral virtues associated with Franciscan teaching. Historical descriptions also identify six figures of Franciscan popes, bringing the total to seventeen statues.
Di Ferro recorded these sculptures in 1825, identifying some as works by Milanti. The distinction between the eleven virtues and the six papal figures helps explain the different numbers given in descriptions of the church.
Other artworks described in the church include a wooden crucifix attributed to Leonardo Milanti, a painting of the Madonna di Trapani by Domenico La Bruna and a statue of Saint Lucy decorated using the estofado technique.
A painting of Saint Francis and the Museo Pepoli
A painting depicting Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata, formerly displayed in the church's chapel of San Francesco, was transferred to the Museo Pepoli in Trapani in 1928.
The painting was traditionally associated with Vincenzo da Pavia. In 1946, the art historian Roberto Longhi attributed it to Titian, dating it to approximately 1525. Filippo Rotolo discussed this attribution in his 1975 history of the church.
The circumstances in which the painting originally reached Trapani remain uncertain. Rotolo noted that the loss of the convent's historical archive made its early provenance difficult to reconstruct.
The convent and cloister
The church formed part of a substantial Franciscan convent complex.
Writing in 1825, Di Ferro described a courtyard decorated with marble columns, a large staircase and extensive corridors. These features reflected the scale of the convent before the nineteenth-century suppression of religious corporations.
Treccani also associates Bonaventura Certo with at least part of the convent's reconstruction and the construction of its cloister, although the precise extent of his involvement remains uncertain.
Sources & further reading
The following sources document the church's medieval origins, seventeenth-century rebuilding, architecture, artworks and later history.