Chiesa Chiesa di Sant'Antonio Abate - Erice

The Church of Sant'Antonio Abate is one of the oldest religious buildings in the city of Erice . It is located in a peripheral area of Erice, near the Jewish cemetery, along the road from Porta Spada to the Spanish Quarter. The original church was probably built in the 13th century.

During the plague epidemic of 1625 it was used as a quarantine site. In 1541 a second nave was added to the original one, lined with Tuscan columns . It was one of the four parishes of Erice, but when the influx of parishioners decreased due to the exodus of the surrounding area , it was closed to worship at the beginning of the 20th century.

In the 1950s it was used as a summer camp and a floor was raised, which distorted the appearance of the building and completely changed the interior, with its rare two-aisled plan. The building was recently carefully restored and regained its original lines as much as possible. Together with the Church of St. Catherine of Alexandria it represents the most emblematic and fascinating that Erice can offer its visitors.

In November 1955, a fresco depicting a saint, which originally decorated one of the pillars of the ogival arch separating the bays of the hall, was detached to be remounted in the Pepoli Regional Museum in Trapani , where it remains is exhibited. The work must be dated between the end of the 12th century and the beginning of the following century, but a later date, at the end of the 14th century, is more likely. The image shows a saint blessing with his right hand, while holding a scroll with his left hand. The figure maintains the calmness typical of Byzantine iconography. "This fresco has an intense chromatic vibrancy and a fluid outline that suggest a 'cultivated' origin, the work of an unknown painter with a Byzantine training, belonging to that group of artists whose circulation in the Italo-Greek monasteries of Sicily and Calabria on has been proven on a large scale.

Willem Vandenameele