The Church and the Cistercian monastery dedicated to St. Lucia had a prominent place in the worship of the city, due to its location in the heart of Ortigia and especially for the feast of St. Lucia in May, which was established in memory of a miraculous intervention (which is still celebrated on the first Sunday of May), the patron saint during the famine of 1646, when the Santa would bring two ships loaded with grain in the port interrupting the long hunger of Siracusa, the ” tell fames “that had hurt the people, as the plaque existing in the church below the nuns’ choir. S. Lucia alla Badia seems to be built in two different styles: the lower part is the manner of Picherali with beautiful reliefs of Spanish coats of arms as it was before the ascent to the throne of Philip V in 1705, while the decoration of the upper is a kind of variant of rococo reminiscent of wooden panels so frequent in the sacristy of Sicily. Surveys of the same style adorn the facade of Palazzo Borgia. A different form of almost rococo can be seen in the capitals of the octagonal temple of S. Lucy at the Sepulcher. The style is quite unusual in Sicily: the only analogy seems to offer reliefs in the spandrels of the former cloister Olivella, now the National Museum in Palermo.
Facade
The church has a high elevation (m. 25) composed of Ionic pilasters, the entablature which consists of a balcony enclosed by an elaborate railing goose breast. The portal with broken pediment supported by twisted columns with high pedestal is decorated with a frame containing rays, on which are placed a column, a sword, a palm and a crown, symbol of the martyrdom of S. Lucia. On the sides, enclosed by frames, coat of arms surmounted by the Spanish royal crowns. On the top of an iron cross removed because it was unsafe.
Internal
For unique collection class, is typical of monastic churches. In time a fervent eighteenth-century fresco “The Triumph of St. Lucia.” Behind the altar there is a “Martyrdom of St. Lucia”, painted intensely narrative Deodato Guinaccia (second half of the sixteenth century). The plasters were made by Blaise White Licodia in 1705, while the gilding of 1784 are as well as the restoration of the times with frescoes on the miracle of 1646. The frontal of silver was carried out by the goldsmith Francesco Messina Tuccio in 1726. On the right side you can see a painting by Giuseppe Offences (l64l) with the miracle of St. Francesco di Paola. The choir, finally, on the vertical of the vestibule, the nave is closed by a high wooden jealousy curvilinear.
Since 2010, the church hosts “The Burial of St Lucy” quaro that Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio painted between 1608 and 1609 during his stay in Syracuse, following the flight from Malta.