Church of Santa Maria di Loreto

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The Mother Church is the main place of worship in the town, as well as one of its most important historical and religious symbols.

Chiesa Santa Maria di Loreto

Located in the heart of the historic center, this church is dedicated to Mary of Loreto, a figure of great devotion for the local community, whose title is linked to the Jubilee of 1600. The church was built between 1598 and 1604, following the granting of the licentia populandi in 1597 by the Spanish crown to Baron Gaspare Lucchese of Delia. In 1608, only the high altar dedicated to Our Lady of Loreto and to the Blessed Sacrament was recorded as existing. Elevated to archpriesthood in 1621, the church consisted throughout the 17th century of a single nave with an apse chapel. Among its treasures is a precious silver reliquary of Saint Rosalia from 1694, patron saint of Delia since 1625. The church remained with a single nave throughout the 18th century, despite major restoration works in the early 1700s. In the first quarter of the 19th century, the transept was added, and in the mid-20th century the side aisles.

Little remains of the numerous works of art documented in the 18th and 19th centuries: the small canvas of Saint Peter, the Maria SS. Libera Inferno, the Pietà (now kept in the Church of Carmel), and the large canvas of the Souls in Purgatory, in addition to the cited altarpiece dedicated to the patron saint. Of particular value is a carved wooden frame of the “Sansovino” type, now stripped of its gilding, dating between the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Among the wooden statues, there is a beautiful Crucifix from the mid-1600s. At the four corners of the dome, frescoes of the four evangelists can be admired, while on the main vault six large panels depict: the Incarnation, the Visitation, the Nativity, the Distress of St. Joseph, the Coronation, and the Glorification of the Virgin. These were painted by Francesco Guadagnino of Canicattì between 1824 and 1825. The current portal dates likely to 1850, as confirmed by a drawing from that year found in the parish archive of the Mother Church.

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