The church of St. Anthony Abbot, located on the ancient street known as Strada della Costa (today’s Via Manno), belonged to the ancient hospital complex of the same name. By the end of the 17th century it had been assigned to the Hospitallers of St. John of God, to whom perhaps we owe the present layout of the church, which was under construction in 1704, and which was consecrated in 1723 by Bishop Sellent, as shown by a small plaque walled in its entrance. The elevation incorporates the formulas of the late Baroque. At the top a valved niche houses the late 16th-century statue of the titular saint, attributed to sculptor Scipione Aprile, in the usual iconography of him carrying a staff and fire. Inside, the centralized space of the hall, which has a slightly elongated octagonal plan, opens into a quadrangular presbytery chapel and six shallow chapels arranged in a radial pattern, one on each side of the octagon, all covered by a barrel vault. The present decoration of the dome is the work of painter Guglielmo Bilancioni (1886), replacing a rich fresco decoration with episodes, destroyed by moisture and removed in 1914, from the life of St. Anthony and with the image of Our Lady of Itria.
