Chiesa del Gesù (Casa Professa)

Jesus's Church is one of the most important Baroque churches of Palermo and Sicily. After almost two years of restoration, the building was reopened for worship in 2009. The Jesuits began the construction of the Church attached to the main one (Casa Professa) in the late sixteenth century, in a place traditionally considered a refuge for hermits, including St. Calogero, still center of early Christian catacombs. The building, a large transept and nave with side chapels, was designed by the Jesuit Giovanni Tristano. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, to adapt it to the needs of the grandeur of worship,  designed by Natale Masuccio, were shot down the dividing walls of the chapels, getting three aisles. In 1892, the Church was declared "National Monument". During the Second World War a bomb fell on the dome and in the collapse, dragged most of the paintings of the presbytery and the transept. The interior is an important example of the fusion between architecture, painting and plastic decoration "a maschio", a valuable marble inlays, made with floral motifs or figurative. The most spectacular part of the building is perhaps the tribune apse, adorned by Shepherd Adoration (1710-1714) and Magi Adoration (1719-1721), marble bas-reliefs on the grandstand seats, by Gioacchino Vitagliano.