The church of Sant'Agostino is a church in the centre of Alcamo linked to the history of the Augustinians. The friars already had a friary in 1506 opposite the Porta Saccari, near today's via San Nicolò; unhappy at depending on the bishop, in 1589 they built a new friary with the church of Sant'Agostino where it stands today. In 1650 the work was still unfinished, because the friars lived on alms in kind, and in 1660, for the same poverty, they left church and friary to the diocese; from 1713 they were run by the parish of San Paolo.
What to see
Between 1849 and 1850 the church was rebuilt on a rectangular plan, with chapels marked by pilasters with Corinthian capitals; the friary area became private housing. Today it has a single nave with a barrel vault, five altars and 24 engaged pillars with Corinthian capitals.
On the high altar is a painting of Saint Augustine by an unknown artist, with a brass tabernacle in Gothic style with inlays; at the sides are canvases of Saint Augustine and Saint Monica on the right, and of Saint Rosalia and the Madonna degli Agonizzanti on the left. In the first chapel on the right is a wooden Saint Nicholas of Bari by L. Santifaller, in the second a painting of the Holy Family from the second half of the nineteenth century.
Visiting
In 1876 the women's Pia Unione Gesù, Maria e Giuseppe was founded here by the priest Antonio Barbuscia Santoro, to whom the parish priest of San Paolo gave an altar with the image of the Holy Family. The rector of the church is the parish priest of Santi Paolo e Bartolomeo; opening times should be checked with the parish.
Our editors' tip
Until 1835 the high altar was dedicated to Saint Nicholas of Tolentino, with a canvas by Giuseppe Carrera of 1610 that can now be seen in the ante-sacristy of the nearby church of San Paolo.
