Description
The Bonajuto Chapel, also called the Salvaterello, is a small building, possibly from the Byzantine era, hidden inside the Baroque Palazzo Bonajuto on Via Bonajuto, in Catania's Civita district: for several scholars, it is one of the few significant Byzantine buildings to survive in the city.
The plan is square, in the shape of a Greek cross, with a dome in the center and three apses arranged like a cloverleaf, as in the Byzantine "cube" churches of Sicily. The floor lies about 2 meters below street level, and the walls also preserve medieval traces. Today it often hosts exhibitions.
It survived the earthquakes that struck Catania, including the devastating one of 1693. In the 18th century the French painter Jean Houel, traveling on the Grand Tour, was unable to visit it but drew it from surveys made by Prince Ignazio Paternò Castello: his plate is in the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg.
The plan is square, in the shape of a Greek cross, with a dome in the center and three apses arranged like a cloverleaf, as in the Byzantine "cube" churches of Sicily. The floor lies about 2 meters below street level, and the walls also preserve medieval traces. Today it often hosts exhibitions.
It survived the earthquakes that struck Catania, including the devastating one of 1693. In the 18th century the French painter Jean Houel, traveling on the Grand Tour, was unable to visit it but drew it from surveys made by Prince Ignazio Paternò Castello: his plate is in the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg.