Description
The Church of San Benedetto is the Baroque church at the start of Via Crociferi, Catania's street of churches and convents: outside, a marble staircase peopled with angels; inside, a nave covered in 18th-century frescoes. It still belongs to a cloistered convent today.
The Benedictine nuns settled here in the 15th century, on the site where a temple of Asclepius once stood. After the earthquake of 1693 the complex was rebuilt; the facade is by Giovanni Battista Vaccarini, the same architect who designed the cathedral's.
At the entrance is the Staircase of the Angels, a marble flight of steps adorned with statues of angels and closed off by a wrought-iron gate. The wooden door tells the life of Saint Benedict in carved panels.
Inside, the church has a single nave, and its frescoed vault is painted from end to end with scenes from the saint's life, painted by Giovanni Tuccari between 1726 and 1729. Along the sides are canvases and frescoes by Sebastiano Lo Monaco, Matteo Desiderato, and Guglielmo Borremans.
The high altar is a precious work of colored marble, semiprecious stones, Sicilian jasper, bronze, and silver. The silver panels show the Last Supper; on the little door of the tabernacle, King David plays the lyre.
On the guided tour of the convent you also see the remains of a Roman domus, uncovered during restoration work, and the 18th-century parlor, the room where the cloistered nuns could speak with their relatives.
It was in these very rooms that Franco Zeffirelli set Sparrow, his film of Giovanni Verga's novel Storia di una capinera. The convent also includes the Badia Piccola, now home to a museum of contemporary art.
The two parts of the convent, the Badia Grande and the Badia Piccola, are joined by the Arch of San Benedetto, built over Via Crociferi in 1704. Tradition has it that the nuns had it put up in a single night, to present the city senate with a done deal.
Tuccari's frescoes came back to light almost by chance. At the end of the 18th century they had been covered with layers of plaster; the bombings of 1943 hit the church hard and brought them to the surface again, and they were restored at once.
On February 5, during the procession of Saint Agatha, the nuns come out onto the staircase and sing a hymn to the patron saint.
Don't miss
• The Staircase of the Angels.
• The vault frescoed by Giovanni Tuccari.
• The nuns' parlor.
• The Arch of San Benedetto.
Did you know?
• The nuns of San Benedetto still live in enclosure and devote themselves to perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.
The Benedictine nuns settled here in the 15th century, on the site where a temple of Asclepius once stood. After the earthquake of 1693 the complex was rebuilt; the facade is by Giovanni Battista Vaccarini, the same architect who designed the cathedral's.
At the entrance is the Staircase of the Angels, a marble flight of steps adorned with statues of angels and closed off by a wrought-iron gate. The wooden door tells the life of Saint Benedict in carved panels.
Inside, the church has a single nave, and its frescoed vault is painted from end to end with scenes from the saint's life, painted by Giovanni Tuccari between 1726 and 1729. Along the sides are canvases and frescoes by Sebastiano Lo Monaco, Matteo Desiderato, and Guglielmo Borremans.
The high altar is a precious work of colored marble, semiprecious stones, Sicilian jasper, bronze, and silver. The silver panels show the Last Supper; on the little door of the tabernacle, King David plays the lyre.
On the guided tour of the convent you also see the remains of a Roman domus, uncovered during restoration work, and the 18th-century parlor, the room where the cloistered nuns could speak with their relatives.
It was in these very rooms that Franco Zeffirelli set Sparrow, his film of Giovanni Verga's novel Storia di una capinera. The convent also includes the Badia Piccola, now home to a museum of contemporary art.
The two parts of the convent, the Badia Grande and the Badia Piccola, are joined by the Arch of San Benedetto, built over Via Crociferi in 1704. Tradition has it that the nuns had it put up in a single night, to present the city senate with a done deal.
Tuccari's frescoes came back to light almost by chance. At the end of the 18th century they had been covered with layers of plaster; the bombings of 1943 hit the church hard and brought them to the surface again, and they were restored at once.
On February 5, during the procession of Saint Agatha, the nuns come out onto the staircase and sing a hymn to the patron saint.
Don't miss
• The Staircase of the Angels.
• The vault frescoed by Giovanni Tuccari.
• The nuns' parlor.
• The Arch of San Benedetto.
Did you know?
• The nuns of San Benedetto still live in enclosure and devote themselves to perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.