San Francesco D'Assisi is a

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

church and former

minorite The Franciscans are a group of related Mendicant orders, mendicant Christianity, Christian Catholic religious order, religious orders within the Catholic Church. Founded in 1209 by Italian Catholic friar Francis of Assisi, these orders include t ...

convent in the town of

Butera Butera ( Sicilian: ''Vutera'') is an Italian town and a ''comune'' in the province of Caltanissetta, in the southern part of the island of Sicily. It is bounded by the ''comuni'' of Gela, Licata, Mazzarino, Ravanusa and Riesi. It has a populatio ...

, the

province of Caltanissetta The Province of Caltanissetta ( it, provincia di Caltanissetta; scn, pruvincia di Nissa or ; officially ''Libero consorzio comunale di Caltanissetta'') is a province in the southern part of Sicily, Italy. Following the suppression of the Sicilia ...

, the region of

Sicily (man) it, Siciliana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Ethnicity , demographics1_footnotes = , demographi ...

, Italy.

Chiesa di San Francesco d'Assisi - Butera

At this site by the 12th-century, there had been a church, Santa Maria del Castello, affiliated with a

Cistercian The Cistercians, () officially the Order of Cistercians ( la, (Sacer) Ordo Cisterciensis, abbreviated as OCist or SOCist), are a Catholic religious order of monks and nuns that branched off from the Benedictines and follow the Rule of Saint ...

monastery. In 1577, a Franciscan convent was built adjacent under the guidance of the Maestro Lo Monaco and patronized by Francesco Di Paola from Gelese. The church contains a wooden cross, dated 1631, with an image of Christ putatively painted by

Domenichino Domenico Zampieri (, ; October 21, 1581 – April 6, 1641), known by the diminutive Domenichino (, ) after his shortness, was an Italian Baroque painter of the Bolognese School of painters. Life Domenichino was born in Bologna, son of a shoem ...

. The altarpieces depicting the ''Assumption of the Virgin Mary'' and of an ''Immaculate Conception with St Francis'' are attributed to

Filippo Paladino Filippo Paladino (1544 -1614) was an Italian painter. Biography He was born near Florence in Tuscany and remained there until circa 1586 when he was imprisoned and subsequently exiled to Malta. From there, he moved to Sicily where he was active ...

. The altarpieces of '' St Michael Archangel'', ''St Francis of Assisi'', and ''Sant'Antonio of Padua'' were painted by Rocco Di Martino. A celebration in honor of the Immaculate Conception is held with a bonfire on 8 December.entry in Buteraweb

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Francesco Butera Churches in the province of Caltanissetta 16th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in Italy