The Baroque is the art of awe, excess, serpentine movement and opulence. 

This artistic and architectural movement arose between the late 1500s and early 1600s as a language of the Counter-Reformation Church and a demonstration of its power.

The landmark city for Baroque art in Italy was Rome, and it was there, in the Holy City, the city of popes and power, that many of Palermo’s artists went to study art. 

Thus, during the 17th and 18th centuries, churches, palaces, and squares in Palermo were built according to this new opulent and fashionable language. 

Here the smooth surfaces gave way to dense decorations in colored marble, extracted from the many quarries in western Sicily. 

Here the yellow marble from Castronovo mixed with the red marble from Castellammare and the black marble from Erice, creating exuberant designs and entirely covering the walls of the churches without leaving the slightest empty space. 

This effect of total filling of the walls is called horror vacui, a Latin expression indicating the “fear” of empty spaces and the total decoration of them.

And it is precisely the excessive and lavish decoration that arouses amazement in the visitor who comes across Palermo’s Baroque churches. An astonishment that leaves one breathless and is a fundamental element of all Baroque art.  

If you cross the threshold of such monuments and you are amazed by the overabundance of ornamentation and the sumptuousness of the decorations, then the Baroque will have achieved its purpose.