Bronte's City/Monuments

Attached to the Lateran Basilica

SAN GIOVANNI

The Church of San Giovanni Evangelista, with its characteristic bell tower of large squared stone blocks, is located within the oldest part of Bronte.

It stands on a large fan-shaped lava staircase, slightly set back from the roadway of Corso Umberto, a road that crosses the entire historic center of Bronte as well as the main road and infrastructure axis of the city.

The church already existed since the beginning of the 1500s; mentioned in 1574 by the bishop of Monreale Mons. L. Torres who described it as "decently decorated" in his "Liber visitationis", the "diary" of his pastoral visit to Bronte (...Visitavit ecclesiam confraternitatis SS. Joannis Eveng., quam reperiit decenter ornatam....").
While from the acts of the subsequent sacred visit of 26 May 1714, it appears that there were sacred altars dedicated to St. John the Evangelist, St. Biagio, St. Crispino and Maria SS. di Monserrato, eliminated at the end of 1700, when the church was rebuilt and embellished with stucco arabesques and the sacred chapel to St. Rosalia restored with greater friezes and luxury.

The church has been dedicated to St. John the Evangelist and St. Rosalia since its origins as can be read on the architrave of the window above the portal: «Ad honorem divi. Joannis Ev. et D. Rosaliae - Ph.s Sottosanti, 1659».

The two other dates 1680-1790, carved on the architrave pediment, probably indicate the period of a first rich endowment (by the same baronial Sottosanti family) and of a second renovation by the abbot Don Francesco Sanfilippo, whose name is carved on the architrave of the door, when it was restored and embellished with arabesques and stucco.

The expressive language of the church stands out in the finesse and attention to detail of the shapes of the lava portal, worked according to moldings and friezes by the skilled hands of the master stonecutters of Bronte. It dates back to 1799.

Bronte, Chiesa di S. Giovanni, di M. Schilirò

The main façade is very simple and develops according to the "hut" typology and presents as its only formal characterizing element the beautiful portal in sculpted lava stone, located at the top of the staircase that connects the building to the underlying Via Umberto.
The vault is barrel-vaulted with lunettes in the hall and the roofing is in brick tiles on a wooden load-bearing structure. The hemispherical dome provides light and covers the Chapel of Santa Rosalia.

The bell tower, built in 1614, with large slabs of lava stone and with a bell chamber in wrought iron and the characteristic battlements, dominates the town with its mass and suffocates the small architecture of the main façade of the Church, with its simple and linear design, and the characteristic fan-shaped lava stone staircase.

The church, in the fourth photo in a watercolour by Mario Schilirò, is dedicated to St. John the Evangelist and to Santa Rosalia as reported in a phrase carved on the architrave of the window above the portal. The dates of two renovations are carved on the portal: «Facta an: 1680 - Ref. an: 1790».

The inside

Bronte, Chiesa di S. Giovanni, l'altare maggiore

Bronte, chiesa di S. Giovanni, Statua della Madonna del Lume

The building has a Latin cross plan, with a rectangular hall, an endonarthex divided into two levels - a vestibule on the ground floor and a choir on the upper floor.

The interior, in which the characteristic themes of Baroque taste are developed, is divided into three parts:

the pronaos with a simple and linear choir above and a small organ, from which you can access the stairs of the bell tower;

the single rectangular nave with a barrel vault;

the large apsidal presbytery, anomalous and singular in shape and size, with the choir clearly raised from the floor of the hall, which widens to form the two arms of the cross.

Inside, the church is adorned with seven altars with a compositional ensemble of each individual altar of notable workmanship. The first altar, on the right as you enter, is dedicated to the Death of St. Joseph, with a Baroque-style oil painting from the first half of the 18th century. The frame, in wood decorated with mixed gold, features decorations representing floral stylizations.

Then follows the Baroque Chapel of Santa Rosalia and the Altar of the Crucifix, considered by our ancestors as a witness and notary in negotiations.

The first altar on the left is dedicated to Santa Maria degli Agonizzanti. The painting, an oil canvas from the first half of the 19th century, measures approximately 3.40 by 2.20 meters and depicts the Madonna with Child and a dying man assisted by a priest.
The theme of the painting, unique in its kind in Bronte, once characterized the church where a congregation of priests had its headquarters and operated for a long time under the proper title of Santa Maria degli Agonizzanti.
Gesualdo De Luca writes that the congregation was established with a Diploma approved on May 2, 1737, by Monsignor Santo Canale, Vicar General of the Diocese, registered in Bronte on August 23, 1737.

The ringing of the small church bell used to announce to everyone the agony of the dying and the succession of particular tollings also made it clear who it was, whether a man or a woman, or whether the one dying was a "don" or a priest.

The Altar of the Dead Christ follows with an oil painting from the first half of the 18th century in Sicilian Baroque style and the Altar of Sant'Antonio Abate with a statue in carved wood decorated with gold leaf in Sicilian Baroque style from the first half of the 18th century.

The main altar is dedicated to the Madonna del Lume. The statue of the Madonna with Child (measuring approximately 1.80 x 1.20 x 0.70 m), in painted modeled plaster and carved wood, carved and painted with gold leaf, dates back to the first half of the 18th century. In Sicilian Baroque style from the Palermo school, it almost faithfully follows the classical iconography of the Madonna del Lume.

The statue, in fact, depicts the Madonna, dressed in a long white dress, with a band studded with precious gems that encircles her hips and a blue cloak, which holds the smiling Baby Jesus in her lap with her left hand while with her right hand she saves a sinful soul in the act of falling into hell.
Kneeling to her left, an angel holds a basket on which Jesus kept the hearts of converted sinners, through the intercession of the Mother.

The altar, from the same period as the statue, is in sculpted polychrome marble; on the front, a delightful marble bas-relief contains a medallion (see below), surmounted by the heads of two angels, with the effigy of the Madonna del Lume.
Two pairs of twisted columns with capitals surmounted by an ornamental arch, delimit the altar niche, surmounted in turn by a decorative baroque structure.

The pairs of columns support the entablature broken by an interrupted crumpled pediment and a folder with festoons at the top; all in modeled plaster and sculpted, carved and painted wood.

On the sides of the altar are two niches with two small graceful statues representing St. John the Evangelist (on the right) and St. John the Baptist and (photo on the right) a painting of St. John the Baptist (an oil painting on canvas measuring 0.60 x 0.90 cm) with an elegant carved wooden frame.

«The church, - writes the historian from Bronte B. Radice - had been aggregated to the Lateran Basilica since 6 August 1594; its aggregation was renewed on July 11, 1786, under Pius VI, the good Pope friend of the philosopher Nicolò Spedalieri, with the obligation for the church to pay 10 pounds of white wax, worked to enjoy all the indulgences and spiritual privileges, which are enjoyed in the basilica of St. John; and for this reason, high up in the choir, the triple crown is seen painted.
This spiritual communion with the Lateran Basilica was renewed in 1902 and on April 22, 1917.»

The aggregation to the basilica of St. John Lateran, which we do not know of having been renewed, meant that the faithful who visited the “aggregated” church of St. John could benefit from the indulgences, privileges and spiritual graces that are obtained in the Roman Basilica.

Paintings, sculptures and more


Paintings and statues of the altars of the church of S. Giovanni: on the left, Death of St. Joseph (oil on canvas, approximately 3.50 x 2.30 meters); Dead Christ (oil on canvas, approximately 3.20 x 2.20 meters) in Sicilian Baroque style, dating back to the first half of the 17th century. The altar and the painting of Santa Maria degli Agonizzanti (from 1790 - 1810, measuring approximately 3.40 meters by 2.20) follow. The theme of this painting, unique in its kind in Bronte, once characterized the church: it represents the Madonna with Child, with St. Michael the Archangel in the foreground who on his shield bears the inscription "Quis / ut / Deus" (Who is like God) and a dying man assisted by a priest. In the Church of S. Giovanni - B. Radice reminds us - «the confraternity of Mercy had its headquarters, called the first Company of Prayer and Death, under the title of the Nigri, founded on 12 April 1616 similar to that of Monreale...». The wooden statue (dimensions: 1.70 x 1.00 x 0.80 m) represents Saint Anthony the Abbot.


Decorative details of the church: friezes on the walls of the presbytery; the two statuettes placed in the niches on the sides of the high altar representing St. John the Baptist (the one on the left) and St. John the Evangelist (on the right); the medallion with the heads of two angels on the marble frieze on the front and decorated part of the high altar; the fresco on the cornice of the apse with the unusual image of Christ Pantocrator blessing, clearly derived from the cathedral of Monreale, on which at the time of the construction of the church Bronte depended as a diocese; a high relief of a woman's head placed in the centre of the arch of the altar of Santa Maria degli Agonizzanti and the simple choir with the small organ.

Chapel of Santa Rosalia

On the right side of the nave is the chapel dedicated to Santa Rosalia which has a quadrangular plan (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 fief of the Hospital of Palermo from 1494 to 1799 and the cult of the Saint of Palermo, today obsolete and almost completely removed, would seem almost imposed by the three centuries of submissions and relationships that the community of Bronte was forced to maintain with that of Palermo. In fact, her feast was celebrated with great pomp and public market only until 1822.

The Chapel with its rich ornamentation, unique in Bronte, a tribute from the "subjects" of Bronte to the Saint of Palermo, is part of the Baroque trend of the 17th century which was very widespread in Eastern Sicily.

Here, however, the unknown artist has exceeded the expressive limits of decoration, making it become a pure architectural form.

In contrast to the limited space (the small chapel measures approximately 6.00 x 3.30 x 3.70 metres), the stuccos, sized for a larger space, form an exuberant complex of friezes and frescoes recalling various episodes of the Saint's life.

Following the stories and traditions of Palermo, the following are represented: Saint Rosalia carving her name and her noble origins on Mount Pellegrino ("Ego Rosalia Sinibaldi ..."); while, in ecstasy, she distributes alms to the poor; in prayer before the Crucifix (two panels); the apparition of Christ to the Saint; the Saint receiving communion; the temptation (two panels) and other episodes and also some scrolls with various inscriptions Bronte/Chiesa di S. Giovanni, Cappella Santa Rosalia, la volta (among which: Ercinia Nocte Iter ostendens, Non sine altera, Conantia Fra(---)be and Omnibus Affluenter).

It is a sumptuous triumph of cherubs, colors and stuccos that finds its only breath in the veiled light filtering from the hemispherical dome that closes the chapel at the top.

Unfortunately some frescoes, deteriorated by time and humidity, are now irremediably illegible and lost.

The statue of Santa Rosalia, measuring 1.80 x 0.90 x 0.80 meters, 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. A documentary inscription at the base of the statue, partly illegible, reports the date 1577.

The Crucifix as Notary

In the church of San Giovanni Evangelista, a noteworthy Crucifix is placed on the third altar (on the right as you enter). It measures approximately 3.30 x 1.80 meters and is in Sicilian Baroque style, by an unknown artist from the first half of the 19th century. It is made of carved wood, painted and decorated with gold leaf.

There is a traditional story (also reported by the historian Benedetto Radice from Bronte in his Historical Memoirs of Bronte) that in the past the Crucifix was elected as a witness and notary in the contracts and agreements that creditors and debtors of Bronte used to make verbally before Him.
And the same tradition does not recall any debtor who failed to keep the sacred and solemn promise, as often happened (and happens) with public or privately negotiated contracts.

Here is what Radice writes:
«A legend still circulates among the people of Bronte about the crucifix.
It was that crucifix, not very artistic in truth, by our good grandparents, blessed times of faith, held as a witness and notary in negotiations. Creditor and debtor presented themselves before Him: “Oh most holy Crucifix of St. John, said the creditor, be you witness that in your presence I lend 100 onze to Titius, to be repaid in a year”.

“Oh most holy crucifix of St. John, replied the debtor, I receive from Caius 100 onze, which in your presence I oblige myself to repay in a year, before You under penalty of my damnation”.

Tradition does not remember if any debtor has failed to keep the sacred and solemn promise.
Nowadays, peoples advanced in civilization try to break faith in public contracts and consider even international conventions to be scraps of paper. Oh tempora, Oh mores!»

The Lodges of S. Giovanni

Around the church of S. Giovanni there were some lodges, similar to those near the church of the Rosary, today a symbolic meeting place for the city (see photo).
Of these, the saying «riducirsi sotto le logge di San Giovanni» (to fall back under the lodges of San Giovanni) survives among our elders (for those who have irremediably lost everything and - as Radice writes - "neither have any place nor fire anymore").
When speaking in Bronte of something not completed in due time, it was once said that it was «like the bell tower of S. Giovanni» and its clock that rang at will was held up as an example of a whimsical person, saying that it was «like the clock of S. Giovanni».
Radice also recalls how, in 1737, a congregation of priests was established in the Church of San Giovanni and operated for a long time under the title of Santa Maria degli Agonizzanti and that the ringing sound of the small church bell used to announce to everyone, with different tolls for the "status" of the people, the agony of the dying.
After the bloody Bronte Events of August 1860, in the elections of 21 October/4 November of the same year, the people of Bronte in the Church of San Giovanni unanimously voted for the annexation of Sicily to Italy («Bronte, voters one thousand nine hundred and ninety-four, all for yes»).
In the past, the church was deconsecrated and was used for various events such as exhibitions or concerts. In 2006, a €997,488 grant from the regional department of cultural heritage allowed for its complete restoration, the delivery of the church to the citizens in December 2010 and the traditional reuse of a sacred building but also a new use as a conference hall or auditorium for sacred music. This last one, however, never happened due to the resistance of the clergy.


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