Tourist Attraction in Enna:
Santuario di Papardura
The sanctuary of Papardura Superiore is a church perched on a rocky area rich in caves, some of which can be visited, in an extraordinary setting that overlooks the valley and the ancient public wash house dating back to the 13th century, resting on the back of a large bridge specially made, which connects two rocky edges. Built around 1660, its layout has a single nave, with a polygonal apse that the legend says, and is derived from an ancient painted cave. Internally decorated with stuccos by the school of Giacomo Serpotta, 1696, partly completed by Giovan Battista Berna in 1699. The sanctuary of Papardura has an austere external façade, with a rose window, but inside its richness is a remarkable expression of the Baroque. There are concentrates, an inlaid wooden ceiling, twelve statues of the Apostles, numerous paintings and frescoes by Borremans, a Flemish painter, and seventeenth-century stuccos from the school of Giacomo Serpotta. The roof consists of a coffered wooden ceiling, whose design is based on the modularity of the square with an octagonal base pyramid in the center. It recalls the wooden roof of the central nave of the Duomo and that of the Church of the Santissimo Salvatore. Richly decorated in Baroque style with polychrome plaster stuccoes and the gold and red enamels of the case that preserves the painted stone with the image of the Crucified Christ. In the side altars there are fronts in engraved leather and four paintings depicting: The Coronation of Jesus, Christ in the column, The fall of Christ, Christ in the garden. The apse with the high altar is placed in the cave, in which there is a silver relief slab depicting the "Triumph of the Cross". The flooring is in polychrome marble, composed of white Carrara marble, Montecitorio red and imperial gray, according to a design that suggests the geometric harmony of the wooden ceiling. Its exterior is simple, in its prospect it is defined by a hut-shaped profile, and by a portal surmounted by a rosette in white stone from Syracuse. The bell tower is positioned at the bottom, on the right side of the main façade, facing the valley. Text processing: Giovambattista Spagnuolo (Myooni)