Compagnia dell'Immacolata Concezione

The Compagnia dell'Immacolata Concezione is a religious confraternity founded in 1596[1] inside the Church of Saint Francis of Assisi in Alcamo, in the province of Trapani.

[2] The historian, originary from Alcamo, describes the presence of the Company and the Chapel with the adjoining oratory in the Church of Saint Francis of Assisi in this way.

Its possible founder was Father Giuseppe Terrana, guardian of the friary for several years: a group of people undertook to form the Confraternity, regulated by some chapters (religion) which were later inserted into the new ones.

The Confraternity made the commitments to celebrate the festivity of the Immaculate every year, to leave the wax offered for its dead brethren to the friary, take part in the procession of Corpus Domini and carry the baldachin; they also were allowed to receive alms, goods and administer them.

[3] This old Statute was abrogated in the 1954, when the Curia Vescovile of Trapani stated a new one by decree, removing some initial rites and duties; besides, it qualified the Company as a Confraternity.

On the ceiling, on the occasion of the Great Jubilee, the same painter made a fresco representing God the Father while creating the Virgin of the Immaculate Conception, by painting her like a picture.

On 8 February 1610 the Administration in charge, negotiated the painting of a picture of Maria Santissima Immacolata and some others on the ceiling of the first part of the chapel, with Giuseppe Carrera, a painter from Trapani.

[3] The present wooden statue, venerated in the Church, was carved in 1695 by Ignazio Ingrassia (a sculptor from Trapani)[1] at the expense of the members of the Company.

On the eve of the feast, after the evening Mass, there are the solemn Vespers, with the presence of the Arcipriest of Alcamo, the believers, the members of Compagnia dell'Immacolata, the civil and military authorities.

In 1883, on the first centenary of his death, Giuseppe Provenzano (President of the Company pro tempore) commissioned the painting of a portrait of this saint to Nicolò Pizzitola, a painter from Alcamo.