Among Sciacca's many churches, Santa Maria della Raccomandata is one of the oldest: it dates from the thirteenth century, and the earliest records tie it, in 1220, to the Carmelite fathers, housed here while they awaited their convent. Over the centuries it passed to the Augustinian hermits and then into private hands, until in 2000, by then in ruins, it was acquired by the town and restored.
What to see
The highlight is the portal: a magnificent ogival arch in sandstone, double-recessed, decorated with the typical motifs of Norman art — stylised leaves on the capitals and rows of small diamond-point bosses. The apse, too, of clear Arab-Norman taste, recalls that of the Basilica del Soccorso. Inside, a single nave, the restoration brought back the Christ Pantocrator in the apse basin and a terracotta floor laid over an older herringbone one. On the flank rise a tower of the early sixteenth century and a cobbled courtyard of 1828, with a well at its centre.
Visiting
The church owes its rebirth to the 2008 restoration, funded with European money, which gave it back to the town after long neglect. The feast of the Madonna della Raccomandata was once held on the first Monday after Pentecost.
Our editors' tip
Step close to the portal and look for the diamond-point bosses: they are the signature of the Norman stonecutters, a detail found in few other churches in Sicily. And compare the apse with that of the Soccorso: the same Arab-Norman hand links the two Sciacca churches.