Chiesa del Gesù (Casa Professa)

The Jesuit church Palermitans call Casa Professa is the building the regional tourism board names as the symbol of the city's baroque: a Latin-cross church of three aisles sheathed in marbles, stuccoes and frescoes, rebuilt after wartime destruction and now open alongside a museum of Jesuit art.

Why it matters

When Palermo wants to show what its baroque means, it points here. The Visit Sicily portal calls the Chiesa del Gesù the emblematic building of Palermitan baroque, and the city's own tourism record calls it the most significant example of baroque art in the city. The church carries the full weight of the Jesuit project in Sicily: begun by the fathers of the Company of Jesus in 1564, expanded over more than a century until the dome was completed in 1683, and decorated by the leading stucco and fresco hands of the age. It also carries the memory of the 1943 bombing that gutted much of it — and of the restorations that, as the regional portal notes, returned almost all the stuccoes and frescoes to view. Few churches in Italy compress so completely the story of ambition, destruction and recovery.

What to notice

The interior follows a Latin cross with three naves and interconnecting side chapels, and the effect is total: columns, pilasters and chapel fronts are wrapped in marmi mischi, the inlaid polychrome marbling that Palermo's workshops perfected. Look for the stuccoes of Procopio Serpotta, applied from 1703 onwards, and in the Oratorio del Sabato from 1740 — his reliefs and putti are among the most graceful in Sicily. Above, the frescoes are the work of Antonio Grano, and in the oratory the altarpiece fresco of the Coronation of the Virgin is by Filippo Randazzo. Before leaving, visit the museum attached to the church: it keeps the Tesoro dei Gesuiti, with coral and silver work from Trapani of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and a broader collection of painting, sculpture and decorative art gathered from the church, the Jesuit house and Sicilian colleges of the Order. The regional portal adds a detail worth pausing on: the church stands on a rise where hermits once sheltered, and paleochristian catacombs remain below.

Context and history

The Gesù was constructed from 1564 by the Jesuit fathers, and its building history runs long: the dome was completed only in 1683, and the decorative campaign continued deep into the eighteenth century, producing the layered interior you see now. The church's fortune changed with the suppression of the Society of Jesus and changed again with modern war: the Visit Sicily portal records the 1943 bombing that destroyed much of the building, followed by restorations that recovered nearly all the stuccoes and frescoes. The museum's site describes its mission today as both artistic and spiritual, serving visitors from around the world, wedding celebrations and those drawn to Jesuit art, and it presents the collection — paintings, sculpture and decorative arts from the church, the adjoining house and the Order's Sicilian colleges — with a virtual tour for remote viewing. The church and museum stand on Piazza Casa Professa in Palermo.