The church of Sant'Anna, also called Sant'Anna Cappuccini and by locals Li Scappuccini, is attached to the former Capuchin friary of Alcamo and belongs to the Fondo edifici di culto. It was built between 1630 and 1634, and the friary between 1633 and 1636, because the friars wanted to be closer to the town. After the friary was suppressed in 1866, the church was entrusted to two former Capuchins from Alcamo who had become priests; in 1947 the parish of Sant'Anna was founded.
What to see
The interior has a single nave, a baptistery and seven chapels, decorated with frescoes by Leonardo Mirabile and Giovanni Dato; those on the nave and vault are by Eugenio Ligotti and Salvatore Gagliano of Palermo. The baptistery, from 1948, has a marble font topped by an angel. On the high altar since 1949 stands the wooden group of Saint Anne with the young Madonna by the Santifaller firm.
In the first chapel on the left is the Crucifix with Our Lady of Sorrows and Saint John, the latter two by Friar Michele Valenza of Trapani (1708-1790); in the second a Sacred Heart carved by Giuseppe Stuflesser of Ortisei. On the right is a canvas attributed to Friar Felice da Sambuca with Saint Joseph, the Madonna and Child, the Blessed Bernard of Corleone and Saint Rosalia; the fourteen Stations of the Cross on the walls are also by Friar Felice. In the third chapel on the right is a Saint Francis by Ludovico Mirabella of Alcamo, and near the entrance an Ecce Homo of the Flemish school.
Visiting
The former friary keeps some canvases that until 1884 hung in a chapel of the church: the Betrayal of Judas, the Arrest of Jesus and the Virgin with the sleeping Child. Mass and opening times should be checked with the diocese of Trapani.
Our editors' tip
In the second chapel on the right is Maria Santissima della Confusione, painted in 1916 by Leonardo Mirabile as a copy of Giuseppe Renda's Our Lady of Sorrows in the church of Santa Maria di Gesù: the original was stolen in 1979, and this copy is what remains.
