The church of Sant'Anna is a religious building in Marsala, in the diocese of Mazara del Vallo, seat of the parish of the same name and of the confraternity of the same name, which organises the Sacred Representation of the Passion of the Lord and the other rites of Holy Week.
What to see
The modest façade is divided into two orders: below a simple opening with a round arch, in the second order, separated from the first by a double cornice, a window; a mixtilinear cornice crowns the façade. The single nave, enhanced by eighteenth-century stuccoes, has a small choir above the entrance and a barrel vault with lunettes. The apse, once separated from the hall by two curved balustrades of mixed marbles of the eighteenth century, now moved to the sides, has an altar of painted glass with a statue of Saint Anne of modest workmanship, bought in 1903 by a local lady; in the pediment broken by the altar's structure one reads «Gloria eorum a partu», referring to Saint Anne and Mary, who drew reason for glory from their childbirths. On the triumphal arch is kept the coat of arms of the Camillians, a red cross on a white shield with the words «In Hoc signo vinces». On the right side, on entering, are the altar of the Madonna di Trapani, with an eighteenth-century canvas attributable to the Trapani painter La Bruna, and that of San Camillo de Lellis, with a seventeenth-century canvas; on the left side a picture of the Holy Family with Saints Anne and Joachim, by an unknown seventeenth-century author, and a fine eighteenth-century wooden Crucifix.
According to the account of the priest Angelo Genna, a certain Giacomo Nagone founded a chapel dedicated to Santa Maria di Curò in the street then called dei Santi. In 1611 the Confraternity of Sant'Anna, founded by Bishop Marco La Cava, decided to build a church dedicated to Saint Anne and incorporated the chapel with its revenues, moving the picture of Santa Maria di Curò there. The church then passed to the Crociferi or Camillians, clerics regular ministers to the sick, who settled in Marsala in 1675; in 1866, with the suppression of the religious orders, the convent was taken over by the State and sold, while the church was assigned to religious as chaplains. It returned to its splendour under the priest Francesco Sutera, who began the restorations and saw the birth of the sodality of the Holy Family in 1888; in 1901 Sutera bought the church from the State property office and proposed its elevation to a parish, granted on 26 July 1920 by the bishop of Mazara, Nicolò Maria Audino, and recognised civilly by ministerial decree on 13 May 1927.
Visiting
The church is on via XIX luglio, in Marsala. The sources consulted give no opening hours or times of services: these should be checked with the parish.
Our editors' tip
If you are in Marsala for Holy Week, remember that the Holy Thursday Procession starts from the church and that the confraternity of Sant'Anna organises the Sacred Representation of the Passion of the Lord.
