Chiesa di San Giorgio dei Genovesi

The story

San Giorgio dei Genovesi was built between 1576 and 1596 for the wealthy community of Genoese merchants trading through the port of Palermo, on a square near the Cala.

The style is Renaissance and sober, very different from the baroque that would soon flood the city: three naves on columns, a regular plan, little decoration.

Deconsecrated, it is now a municipal exhibition space and keeps the merchants’ funerary slabs in its floor.

Why it is worth it

It is a cool, geometric church in the best sense: after days of gilded stucco, here you see bare proportion. Look down at the floor, at the tomb slabs of the Genoese merchants with their arms worn smooth by feet. Then step out into the square, one of the few quiet shaded corners near the Cala.