Castelvetrano - Santissima Trinità di Delia

Above where the River Delia has been dammed to produce the Lago della Trinità, there stands the Chiesa di Santissima Trinità di Delia (4km/2mi west of Castelvetrano). The church, which is well worth visiting, is on the estate of the Saporito family, and is used by them as a burial chapel. The church was constructed between 1140 and 1160, probably as a place of worship of the Basilian order. This seems likely because the church, with its small square central building, is like a cross-domed church in the Byzantine style. The central dome rests on four pillars, while the east end boasts three semi-circular apses. The interior, which was restored in 1880 by Giuseppe Patricolo, displays ashlaring worked with the utmost care. The exterior of the buildings has a block-like unity of structure; the frames of the ogival windows and the dome betray Arab influences. As a whole, this isolated building is closely related to Santa Maria dell'Ammiraglio in Palermo and San Nicoló Regale in nearby Mazara : "What all three churches have in common is the marriage of an Orthodox- Byzantine architectural type with individual Arab shapes, which predominated in most of the buildings of the time of King Roger II (d. 1154)" (W. Krönig).