Ex convento della Magione, Palermo

Also known as the Church of the Holy Trinity. Together with the adjoining Cistercian abbey, the church was founded in 1191 by Matteo Ajello, chancellor of the Norman kingdom. In 1197 it was ceded to the Teutonic Knights Order and became the seat of the “Mansio”, that is, the preceptor of the order: hence the name Magione. The church is the last building constructed by the Normans in Palermo. It combines the essential geometric volumes of Fatimid derivation, observable in the external masonry and facade, with an internal spatial distribution of Nordic origins. Among the works of art in the church are worth mentioning: two 16th-century holy water fonts placed on either side of the entrance; the funerary monument of F. Perdicaro (d. 1576), likely by Vincenzo Gagini, positioned under a 15th-century stone Cross with the emblem of the Teutonic Knights; from the 16th century there is a Virgin with Child together with a blessing Christ both from the Gagini workshop; a tabernacle from 1528 and a Madonna painted on board, a late Gothic marble triptych, with at the center a Madonna with Child and St. Catherine. The Pietà by Campini from 1953 was placed at the entrance, replacing the sculpture by Vincenzo Gagini, destroyed by bombings in the Second World War. Finally, there are tombs of 15th-century Teutonic Knights in the floor, whose tomb slabs are exhibited in rooms adjacent to the cloister. The cloister, mutilated on the short sides and located – contrary to the more frequent use – to the west of the church, is what remains of the original Cistercian monastery. From a door located to the left of the church facade, you access the Chapel of St. Cecilia, interesting for the works of art it preserves: a large fresco of the Crucifixion, a fragment of a 13th-century fresco and the red ochre Sinopia of the crucifixion itself.