Church of San Francesco d'Assisi in Mineo
The Church of San Francesco d'Assisi e dell'Immacolata in Mineo is one of the sacred buildings of the city.
The church dates back to 1400 and the stone portal, corroded by time, walled into the wall along the Via Roma is one of the few elements dating back to the time of its construction.
The church is part of the convent of the Conventual Franciscan Fathers who opened it in 1450.
In the main altar of the church of particular value is the statue of the Immaculate Convent which dates back at the beginning of the 1700s. The statue, made of paper mache worked in pure gold, according to the manufacture of the time, portrays the Virgin in an attitude of prayer, with her eyes turned to the sky and her hands joined. The crown is dated 1727 dyed in silver, the sunburst is in wood and pure gold.
Inside the church there are several valuable works: a canvas depicting San Francesco da Paola, an artistic work of the 1600s, one of the oldest in the city; a seventeenth-century wooden statue of San Giovanni Battista; a 17th century canvas of the Holy Crucifix, the eighteenth-century wooden pulpit.
