The complex traces its beginnings to 1150, when Countess Adelasia di Adernò, niece of the great count Roger I of Hauteville, founded a monastery dedicated to Saint Lucy and placed it under the Benedictine rule. Little survives of that medieval foundation: the church and monastery seen today were built in 1596, and the church was rebuilt at the end of the eighteenth century, when it took on the monumental form that still sets it apart in the fabric of Adrano.
What to see
The facade rises in three orders and is framed by two matching bell towers, each crowned by a square dome — a silhouette recognisable from a distance. Step inside and the first thing to hold the eye is the choir, carved in the Rococo style. Move on to the first altar and you meet the painting of Saint Lucy led to martyrdom, attributed to Giuseppe Rapisardi. The paintings in the apse and the decoration of the vault reward a closer look, while the canvases on the first altar to the left and the second to the right are traced to the school of Olivio Sozzi. It is an interior where the decorative work carries as much weight as the architecture, in the late-Baroque taste of the island.
Visiting
The monastery is no longer home to a religious community: it now houses the lower secondary school of the “II Istituto Comprensivo Canonico Vincenzo Bascetta.” The conventual wing has an everyday, scholastic life, while the church keeps the artistic heritage and remains the real focus of a visit.
Our editors' tip
Give the first altar a few extra minutes: Rapisardi's martyrdom of Saint Lucy and the canvases from the school of Olivio Sozzi read better in raking light, so aim for a clear day when the sun cuts across the nave. Anyone who wants to dig deeper will find the less visible history of the complex in Lina Scalisi's study of the monastery between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries.