Complessa di Santa Maria dello Spasimo

Lonely Planet review

Behind the Galleria Regionale Siciliana is the Complessa di Santa Maria dello Spasimo, with its elegant polygonal apse and a tall slender nave that has stood for centuries without a roof. The only example of northern Gothic in Sicily, the church was built by a wealthy doctor, Girolamo Basilicò, on his return from the Holy Land in the early 1500s.

The good doctor then commissioned Raffaello Sanzio (1483-1520) to produce a panel painting for the altar, the Spasimo di Sicilia , but this is now sadly missing, having been spirited away to Madrid (it now hangs in the Prado) by the viceroy Ferdinado d'Ayala, who bribed the not-so-saintly abbot. The complex is now one of the success stories of the restoration programme, having reopened in 1995 as a venue for concerts and exhibitions (evenings from June to end of September).