Palizzi has retained the charm of the old, medieval village, comprising narrow streets, lanes and flights of steps connecting the village’s houses.

The St. Anne’s Church [Chiesa di Sant’Anna] is one of the town’s most evocative places of worship. The building dates back to the seventeenth century.

Principal works of art

The church owes its name to a work of considerable artistic value, a statue of Saint Anne with the Virgin Mary in her arms.

At the back of the apse, in a niche behind the main altar of the parish church in Palizzi Superiore, there is a marble statue of Sant’Anna e la Madonna, [Saint Anne and the Madonna] one of the first sculptures in the round ever seen in the Bova diocese. This work, never examined in depth by the critics, may have come from the workshop of Mazzolo, given the similarities between the girl Mary, with her archaic facial features, and other images sculpted in the same artistic milieu.

The church has a Latin cross floor plan and, although recently renovated, it retains some elements of its original medieval structure, like its apse surmounted by a Byzantine-style dome.

The description of this work is by Pasquale Faenza.