Chiesa Parrocchiale di Santa Maria della Pietà - Palermo

In 1495, Francesco Abatellis, master portulan of the Kingdom of Sicily, left the residence to his wife with the condition that upon her death the palace and the adjacent garden would be transformed into a monastery , inhabited by nuns who followed the rule of Saint Benedict under the title of the "Madonna of Pity", to whom Francesco Abatellis was very devoted during his life.

The church is surrounded by the eighteenth-century Palazzo Petrulla, forms the beginning of the small square of the same name that, despite its small size, shows the typical Baroque taste for theatricality. The construction of the church, commissioned by the Dominican nuns of the adjacent monastery, began in 1678 and was completed in 1684. The facade, a true 17th-century masterpiece , consists of two rows of completely free-standing columns alternating with several statues depicting Dominican saints or depicting blessed persons according to a compositional scheme that was certainly influenced by Baroque religious buildings in Rome.

In the center of the facade, above the portal, stands the victorious marble statue of St. Dominic on the 'globe' wrapped with the signs of the zodiac. A large rose window decorated with angels and allegorical animals, probably dogs (another symbol of the Dominican Order), is above the plaque on the cornice.

The interior of the church consists of one nave with three shallow chapels on each side containing valuable paintings and polychrome marble altars.

Willem Vandenameele