Chapel of Saint Crescentia

The small, evocative building with a square plan and a raised-arch dome, opened by pointed arches, is an original example of architecture typical of Trapani of the late fifteenth–early sixteenth century, with Arab, Norman and Gothic influences. Particular is the solution of the dome’s corner supports with fan-shaped squinches.

An ancient popular belief holds that Saint Crescentia, Saint Vitus’s nurse, had the power to drive away fear, “u scantu”, and that this happened by throwing a stone inside the chapel.

According to the legend, God punished the pagan inhabitants of Conturrana, for not having listened to Saint Vitus’s preaching, with an avalanche that buried the village: Crescentia, who was with Vitus and the tutor Modestus, disobeying the divine order not to turn round, turned to stone, at the spot where the chapel stands, out of fright at seeing the village disappear under the enormous boulders; the village is believed to be buried under the huge mass of stones of the Valanga district (opposite).