Description
San Giovanni degli Eremiti is a Norman church in Palermo that looks as if it had come out of an Eastern city: tuff cubes crowned with red domes, a cloister with a garden and an unusual calm for the city center. It is a national monument and since 2015 part of UNESCO's Arab-Norman itinerary.
From outside, the red domes catch the eye. It is not an ancient color: it was chosen in the 19th century by the architect Giuseppe Patricolo, who interpreted some traces of dark red plaster that way. Around 1880 he also removed the additions of the centuries and tried to give the church back its original look.
The plan is a tau cross, T-shaped, divided into square bays, each topped by a hemisphere. On either side of the presbytery two square volumes have domes of their own, and the left one serves as the bell tower.
Inside, everything is bare and recollected. The walls are of squared tuff blocks, left exposed, without decoration. Five square bays are covered by small domes linked to the walls by niches, and there are three semicircular apses.
The pairing of the square, the earth, with the circle, the sky, is a symbol dear to both Byzantine and Fatimid Islamic culture.
The loveliest part is the cloister, the best-preserved part of the original monastery, set in a lush garden. Paired columns with acanthus-leaf capitals support pointed double-ring arches, light and soaring. In the cloister there is also an Arab cistern.
The oratory of San Mercurio looks onto the courtyard, home to a religious confraternity founded in 1572.
The name hides a small mix-up. Next to the monastery stood a church dedicated to Saint Mercury, in Greek Hermes. The monks lived as hermits, the "romiti," and between Hermes and hermits the wordplay was made: the monastery became San Giovanni degli Eremiti.
Tradition traces it back to Saint Gregory the Great and his mother Silvia, in 581. In 842 the Saracens destroyed it. In 1132 King Roger II rebuilt it, entrusted it to William of Vercelli, founder of the Order of Montevergine, and gave it the title "Royal."
Don't miss
• The cloister.
• The red domes.
• The Arab cistern.
Did you know?
• According to tradition, Agatho, later pope, took the monastic habit here.
• Other monasteries, founded by Abbot John Nusco between 1157 and 1163, depended on this one.
• A 15th-century painting of Saint John the Evangelist by Tommaso De Vigilia is documented in the church.
• The monastery was the first abbey seat of the Benedictine Congregation in Sicily.
From outside, the red domes catch the eye. It is not an ancient color: it was chosen in the 19th century by the architect Giuseppe Patricolo, who interpreted some traces of dark red plaster that way. Around 1880 he also removed the additions of the centuries and tried to give the church back its original look.
The plan is a tau cross, T-shaped, divided into square bays, each topped by a hemisphere. On either side of the presbytery two square volumes have domes of their own, and the left one serves as the bell tower.
Inside, everything is bare and recollected. The walls are of squared tuff blocks, left exposed, without decoration. Five square bays are covered by small domes linked to the walls by niches, and there are three semicircular apses.
The pairing of the square, the earth, with the circle, the sky, is a symbol dear to both Byzantine and Fatimid Islamic culture.
The loveliest part is the cloister, the best-preserved part of the original monastery, set in a lush garden. Paired columns with acanthus-leaf capitals support pointed double-ring arches, light and soaring. In the cloister there is also an Arab cistern.
The oratory of San Mercurio looks onto the courtyard, home to a religious confraternity founded in 1572.
The name hides a small mix-up. Next to the monastery stood a church dedicated to Saint Mercury, in Greek Hermes. The monks lived as hermits, the "romiti," and between Hermes and hermits the wordplay was made: the monastery became San Giovanni degli Eremiti.
Tradition traces it back to Saint Gregory the Great and his mother Silvia, in 581. In 842 the Saracens destroyed it. In 1132 King Roger II rebuilt it, entrusted it to William of Vercelli, founder of the Order of Montevergine, and gave it the title "Royal."
Don't miss
• The cloister.
• The red domes.
• The Arab cistern.
Did you know?
• According to tradition, Agatho, later pope, took the monastic habit here.
• Other monasteries, founded by Abbot John Nusco between 1157 and 1163, depended on this one.
• A 15th-century painting of Saint John the Evangelist by Tommaso De Vigilia is documented in the church.
• The monastery was the first abbey seat of the Benedictine Congregation in Sicily.