The curious name comes from a dwarf palm, the giummara, that grows wild on these heights above Sciacca. But the church's story is far older: it began as a Basilian monastery in the Norman age and was refounded by Judith of Hauteville, daughter of the Great Count Roger and lady of Sciacca from 1100 to 1136, who settled here cloistered nuns and Cluniac monks come from beyond the Alps. Its priory was the only one of the Order of Cluny in all of southern Italy.
What to see
From the complex's long life remain layers of centuries: the Gothic-Catalan structure reworked from 1530, the stuccos and Baroque decoration of 1763, carried out by the Palermitan Angelo Firriolo, from the Serpotta workshop. Inside is the Assumption of the Virgin painted by Mariano Rossi between 1767 and 1768. The monastery's story is eventful: in 1619, for fear of Turkish pirate raids, the nuns were moved to the safer Badia Grande within the walls, returning only in 1622 after ringing the convent with sturdy walls.
Visiting
The complex, which stands beside the imposing De Luna castle, nearly vanished: in the nineteenth century one part was demolished to make an electrical works, another was used as a barracks. It was Father Michele Arena who saved the church and much of the structure, taking in his orphans there.
Our editors' tip
See the church together with the castle that towers over it: church and fortress tell the same Norman and Aragonese Sciacca. And remember you stand before the only Cluniac priory in southern Italy — a fragment of the great abbey of Cluny that reached all the way down here, by the Sicilian sea.
