Church of San Pietro

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Discover the history, architecture, archaeology, people and events connected with this place, with more detailed information about its origins, development and significance.

The medieval church

San Pietro was founded in 1365 under an edict issued at Avignon by Pope Urban V. The church was subsequently enlarged during the 16th and 17th centuries, before undergoing the major architectural transformation that produced much of its present appearance.

The church occupies a prominent position near the geographical centre of the historic town. Its site appears to have had significance considerably earlier than the medieval foundation. Tusa records the discovery here, during the excavation of a cistern, of a Greek inscription commemorating the Roman victory over the Carthaginians at Panormus in 250 BCE. The inscription is now preserved in the Cordici Museum.

Tusa interpreted this and the elevated position of the site as evidence that the area may once have been associated with a military presence connected with the ancient sanctuary of Venus Erycina. While the discovery of the inscription is significant evidence for activity in this part of ancient Eryx, the identification of the site specifically with the sanctuary's Venerei or guards should be regarded as an interpretation rather than an established archaeological conclusion.

The Poor Clares' monastery

In 1542 San Pietro became associated with a monastery of the Poor Clares established opposite the church by the Ericine priest Pietro Maranzano. The two buildings were connected above the street by a substantial covered passage supported on a single arch, a feature that remains one of the most distinctive elements of the complex.

The former monastery developed into a substantial complex. Tusa describes its massive masonry and surviving 16th-century elements, including the portal, an internal loggia and a large courtyard dominated by a terrace-tower. Later alterations changed parts of the building without completely obscuring its earlier character.

Giovanni Biagio Amico and San Pietro

The most important transformation of the church was undertaken in the 18th century by Giovanni Biagio Amico (1684–1754), one of the leading architects working in western Sicily during the Sicilian Baroque.

Born in Trapani, Amico combined architecture with an ecclesiastical career. He became architect to the Senate of Trapani and later engineer of the Royal Patrimony of the Kingdom of Sicily. His work extended across western Sicily and included important interventions at the Anime Sante del Purgatorio and the Cathedral of San Lorenzo in Trapani. He was also the author of L'Architetto pratico, an architectural treatise published in two volumes in 1726 and 1750.

At San Pietro, Amico transformed the earlier church into a markedly Baroque interior. Tusa describes the design as influenced by Francesco Borromini, particularly in the flowing arrangement of the walls and the oval treatment of the apse. Rather than forming a conventional rectangular interior, these curved surfaces give the church a more dynamic spatial character.

Suppression and new uses

Following the suppression of religious orders in 1866, the monastery passed to the municipality. It subsequently housed the Collegio Regina Margherita and was later converted into a college and orphanage under the Opera Pia San Rocco, administered by the Sisters of Saint Vincent.

The institution ceased operating during the 1960s. After a period of abandonment, the former monastery was transferred to the Ettore Majorana Foundation and Centre for Scientific Culture, which restored the complex and adapted its historic spaces for scientific and academic use.

The Isidor I. Rabi Institute

The former Poor Clares' monastery now houses the Isidor I. Rabi Institute, one of the principal buildings of the Ettore Majorana Foundation and Centre for Scientific Culture.

The complex contains the Centre's Directorate and main Secretariat together with the Richard P. Feynman Lecture Hall. It also houses the Polo Sismico, associated with the Alberto Gabriele Seismic Network established in 1981.

The institute complex also includes the Piersanti Mattarella Tower of Thought. Named after the Sicilian politician Piersanti Mattarella, the tower was recognised in 2016 as an EPS Historic Site by the European Physical Society.

The adaptation of the monastery has therefore given the complex an unusual continuity of institutional use: a building established for a contemplative religious community now forms part of an international centre for scientific research and education.