Church of the Santissimo Crocifisso of Noto Sicily

CHURCH OF THE SANTISSIMO CROCIFISSO OF NOTO SICILY

The church of the Santissimo Crocifisso of Noto Sicily, is the largest church in Piano Alto and the second (by size) of Noto, it was designed by Rosario Gagliardi in the first decades of the 18th century.

The unfinished facade rises on a short staircase, which is linear like the rest of the facade. The rose window was recently rebuilt to replace another floor of the pediment with a small window built in the second half of the 20th century. The dome was built around 1901, and was inaugurated a few years later as a Benedictine dome. On the sides of the main entrance there were recently lions of Roman origin, now kept inside the church.

The interior has 3 naves, the smaller ones are decorated with marble altars and covered with small domes, the right head of the transept houses a large marble work recovered from Noto Antica, the White Madonna by Francesco Laurana. In the left aisle you can find a large chapel, that of the Landolina, finely decorated with stuccos and frescoes, and colored with colors like pink and light blue that are not found in the rest of the church.
This chapel holds another important object, the case with the holy thorn.
In the apse there is the cross in gold made in 1746 by V. Rotondo, on Gagliardi's drawings, in the center of this cross there is a small shrine that houses a painting on wood depicting Christ, recovered in Noto Antica and attributed to San Luca.