The church and the convent of the Franciscan friars minor both date back to 1364 and the founding bull was issued in Avignon by Pope Urban V on August 22, 1362. Starting from the seventeenth century, the convent was enlarged and renewed. The bell tower was erected in 1631 and a bell weighing 25 quintals was commissioned by the conventual friars, the largest of Erice, which was paid with the savings on food and clothing of the religious. The church was definitively closed for worship in 1927 due to the sudden collapse of the central nave. In the 70s it was the subject of a last restoration. From 1911 the entire convent structure was the seat of the civic hospital and since 1975, with the necessary modifications, it is one of the headquarters of the “Ettore Maiorana” Foundation.
