The church of Santa Maria del Rosario, also called the church of the Rosary or of San Domenico, was founded in Alcamo in 1660 by the Dominicans together with the friary next door, used after 1866 for public offices and private houses. Until then the friars had lived in the old friary beside Santa Maria della Stella, which already housed eight friars in 1587 and needed urgent repairs; when they moved, they brought with them the fresco of the Madonna, still kept here. In 1761 the church was rebuilt and much enlarged, and in 1947 it became a parish.
What to see
The interior is a single rectangular nave with nine chapels. In the second chapel on the right is the fresco of Santa Maria della Stella, of 1464, attributed to Tommaso De Vigilia, faded but still expressive. Over the side door is the Madonna of the Rosary with the Mysteries by Vito Carrera, of 1603; in the fourth chapel on the right, on the pillars, are the fifteen ovals of the Mysteries of the Rosary painted by Carlo Brunetti in 1759 for the Company of the Rosary.
In the apse is an altar with the Madonna of the Rosary and three wooden statues, the Madonna and Child, Saint Dominic and Saint Rose. Other works include an old cross fixed to the ceiling, a seventeenth-century Saint Peter Martyr, a Saint Anthony of Padua by Mario Giambona of 1713, a Dominican saint before the Madonna by Bernardo Rizzuti Pauletti of Corleone of 1718 and, in the fourth chapel on the left, a marble relief of the Dormition of the Virgin from the Gagini school.
Visiting
The sacristy has a canvas by Giuseppe Renda of 1793 with a miracle of Saint Vincent Ferrer and a Saint Angela Merici by Francesco Alesi of 1905. Mass and opening times should be checked with the diocese of Trapani.
Our editors' tip
The sacristy once also held the alabaster Madonna della Provvidenza attributed to Pietro de Bonitate: today it is in the Museum of Sacred Art of the mother church.
