Bronte's City/Monuments

Attached to the Lateran Basilica

SAN GIOVANNI

The church of San Giovanni Evangelist, from the characteristic bell tower of big ashlars made of squared stone, rises on the big lava steps, slightly back from the roadbed of the Corso Umberto.

Dedicated in San Giovanni Evangelist and to Santa Rosalia, had existed since 1574, mentioned by Monsignor Torres in the "Liber visitationis" during his pastoral visit in Bronte ("...Visitavit ecclesiam confraternitatis SS. Joannis Eveng., quam reperiit decenter ornatam...."). The two dates 1580-1799, sculpted above the portal, probably show the dates of a first and a second remaking.

The bell tower

built in 1614, with a belfry in wrought iron and the characteristic battlement, chokes the little architecture of the principal prospect of the church, from the simple and linear drawing, and the fanlike characteristic flight of steps in lava stone.

The expressive language of the church shows up in the fineness and care of the details about the forms of the lava portal, worked according to moldings and ornaments by the able hands of the local stone cutting masters.

The massive size of the bell tower dominates it from above the crenellated tower; the massive and squat form ends up in the top with a prismatic volume to octagonal base.

The lava stone blocks well squared and of big dimensions, are interrupted by the high plinth and the jutting out frame of the belfry.

Three one light windows open at right on the frontal side.

The inside

Bronte, chiesa di S. Giovanni, Statua della Madonna del Lume The inside, in which the themes characteristic of the baroque taste are developed, is divided into three parts:

the lobby with overhanging choristers area, from where one can go to the stairs of the belfry;

the rectangular nave with a barrel vault,

the large anomalous and singular presbytery for shape and dimension.

At the presbytery base two couple of columns surmounted by an ornamental big arch, divide the niche of the major altar surmounted in his turn by a baroque decorative structure.

Chapel of Santa Rosalia

On the right side of the nave is the chapel dedicated to Santa Rosalia (the church is also dedicated to the Saint as can be read in the architrave of the large window on the facade).

Bronte remained a fiefdom of the Palermo Hospital from 1494 to 1799 and the cult of the Palermo saint, now obsolete and almost completely removed, would seem almost imposed by the three centuries of submission and relationships that the Bronte community was forced to maintain with the Palermo community.

In fact, the festival was celebrated with great pomp and public market only until 1822.

The Chapel with its rich ornamentation, unique in Bronte, fits into the 17th century baroque trend that is widespread in Eastern Sicily.

Here, however, the unknown artist has overcome the expressive limits of decoration, making it become a pure architectural form.
In contrast to the small space (the small chapel measures approximately 6.00 x 3.30 x 3.70 metres), the stuccoes, sized for a larger environment, form an exuberant complex of friezes and frescoes recalling various episodes of life of the Saint.

Represented (from the right) is Santa Rosalia who engraves her name on Mount Pellegrino, while, in ecstasy, she distributes alms to the poor; (left) the Saint receiving communion, in prayer before the Crucifix, the appearance of Christ and temptation.
It is a sumptuous triumph of cherubs and stuccos that finds its only breath in the veiled light filtering from the hemispherical dome that closes the chapel at the top.
The statue of Santa Rosalia, measuring 1.80 x 0.90 x 0.80 metres, is from the first half of the 18th century. In Sicilian Baroque style, it is made of wood and papier-mâché, decorated with gilding and painted.

On the minor altars, it is to be noted a Crucifix of unknown author.

Bronte/Chiesa di S. Giovanni, Cappella Santa Rosalia, la volta

Adjacent to the church there were then some "logge" (arcades), similar to those still existing near the Rosary church: that's why the saying "ridursi sotto le logge di San Giovanni" ("to be reduced under the arcades of San Giovanni") still survives among our elders (for who has lost everything and "has neither loco (place to stay) nor foco ("fire to get warm anymore").

In 1860 the brontesi in the church of San Giovanni, voted the annexation of Sicily to Italy.

There is a legend (reported by the brontese historian Benedetto Radice in the Historical Memories of Bronte) that in times past the crucifix was elected as witness and notary in the agreements that the brontesi were verbally taking in front of Him.

The Radice remembers as, in 1737, in the church of San Giovanni was instituted, and worked for a long time, a congregation of priests under the title of Santa Maria Of The Agonizzanti and that the bell of the church announced usually to everybody, the dying men agony.

Translated by Sam Di Bella

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