Description
The Church of Sant’Antonio stands at the crossroads between the old Vissana road and the road which leads down from the castle of Campi.
It is a sixteenth-century reconstruction of an older building. It is a long, low building with an arch and door (with a tau cross in the keystone), a small bell gable and a protruding sacristy by way of an apse, half covered by the soil around it. The sixteenth century façade with its tympanum stands higher and the portal is made of local white stone.
The interior has a roof truss resting directly on the pillars. The walls are decorated with 15th century frescoes. On the right is a mural triptych by Antonio Sparapane with St. Anthony Abbot, and a Madonna and Child between two Saints. The right-hand wall shows two scenes, the first of a Saint and some monks fighting the devil; the second of a sick person with a young man sitting at the foot of the bed.
The high altar was taken from the Monastery of St. Orsola (once in the Castle of Campi) and is decorated with a painting imbued with the final reflections of the art of Jacopo Siculo (16th century). It depicts the Saint and her companions, pierced by the archers’ arrows, against a background of a sea with ships and a port, overshadowed by the Redeemer and by little Angels handing out the palms of martyrdom. The presbytery houses a wooden statue of St. Blaise, which came from the hermitage of the same name and was perhaps made in 1504 by Angelo di Giovanni di Antonio from Campi.
The Cross of Petrus Pictor, a work dating back to the first half of the thirteenth century, was discovered in this Church and has since been removed as a precaution.