The "Knight's Arch" chapel is perhaps the most important of the landmarks of the Valderian community.
The chapel, intended to house the painting of the Madonna of Custonaci, during the "transports" from Custonaci to Erice and vice versa, documented from 1568 to 1936 was for a long time square in plan, open on all four sides by large arches, had a domed roof supported by four strong pillars resting on high plinths, a reworked architectural solution of the square aedicules with dome, fifteenth-fifteenth century, derived from Arab-Norman pavilions. Its existence is attested at the beginning of the 18th century, but it is presumable that it had been built in the previous century, if not even at the end of the 16th century.
For a long time, only two pillars and an arch known as the Knight's Arch had been preserved of the ancient layout.
In 2009, restoration work followed by the superintendence of Trapani was started and was completed with the erection of the four pillars surmounted by a square concrete structure with an attached dome.
Of the ancient arches and cornice there was no trace. Thus began a passing of the buck between the various agencies, the contractor, etc., which resulted in an "unfinished business" unleashing bitter and heated criticism in the Valderican community.
We at CusenzaMarmi, an artisan company in Valderice since 1970, seeing time passing by with no one working to remedy it, after a family consultation, decided to donate and make the four arches and the perimeter cornice in sandstone from Custonaci.
The proposal already made in 2011 to the previous city administration did not find particular response; in 2013 we re-proposed to the new administration our intention to donate the work to complete the restoration of the chapel, and after a bureaucratic process at the end of 2015 we were informed that the work could begin.
Thus, in February 2016 we began the production of the arches and cornice: after 250 hours of work and 26 days needed for assembly finally the Knight's Chapel can once again be called an "arch."
Our motivations for this gesture are twofold: one of a personal nature and one of a social nature.
It is our desire, after nearly 50 years of activity and excellence in artistic marble working with our achievements scattered in various parts of the world, to leave the community something that testifies to the mark of our craftsmanship in our territory, in our "home."
It is also our conviction that it is necessary to give a new meaning to "res pubblica" other than the one that has so far marked the sentiment of a large part of Italians, namely, to see the commons as a cow to be milked and exploited by limiting ourselves to criticism. We want with this gesture to set an example, to start a "chain reaction" of "doing" that will lead more and more citizens to take care of and care for the commons as their own.
