Description
The Church of San Gaetano alle Grotte is a late-18th-century church in Piazza Carlo Alberto in Catania, on the square of the historic Fera ô luni market. The surprise lies beneath it: a lava cave that was first a Roman cistern, then a burial place, and that by tradition is one of the city's first churches.
Above ground the church is sober: the facade has two tiers, divided by a cornice with four plain pilasters, and in a niche stands the statue of Saint Cajetan with the Child in his arms. Inside there is a single nave marked by niches, and in the presbytery twelve Corinthian columns in groups of three.
The real reason to go in is the underground church, reached by a staircase of lava stone blocks built in Norman times. Here, in the year 262, by tradition, Bishop Everius carved out a church dedicated to Mary: it would be among the first in Europe named for the Virgin.
On the ceiling and walls you can read the traces of the centuries: a terracotta brick arch, an arcosolium walled up to make the altar, two lava benches. Of the ancient decoration a Madonna and Child remains on the north wall, its faces barely legible.
The well was turned into a baptismal font: baptism was by immersion, after the age of seven. In Norman times, with the change of rite, the well took on a cylindrical shape for washing babies' heads.
The entrance arch is cut into prehistoric lava and bears the words Gloria in Excelsis Deo on a ribbon held by 18th-century putti. Beside it are painted shepherds, in a Renaissance taste, recalling the reopening of 1558.
The cave, in fact, was forgotten for centuries: the spring that fed the well flooded it and filled it with mud. The Carmelite friars cleaned it out only in 1558, and the cave became Santa Maria di Betlemme, tied to the cult of the nativity scene.
The church above was less fortunate: partly demolished in 1674 to make room for the Bastion of San Michele, it collapsed in the earthquake of 1693. The reconstruction took more than a hundred years, and the church reopened only in 1801, dedicated to Saint Cajetan.
Don't miss
• The underground church.
• The well turned into a baptismal font.
• The entrance arch with the words Gloria in Excelsis Deo.
Did you know?
• The lava cave perhaps formed during an ancient eruption of Etna.
• The Confraternity of San Gaetano paid for the church's reconstruction after the earthquake.
Above ground the church is sober: the facade has two tiers, divided by a cornice with four plain pilasters, and in a niche stands the statue of Saint Cajetan with the Child in his arms. Inside there is a single nave marked by niches, and in the presbytery twelve Corinthian columns in groups of three.
The real reason to go in is the underground church, reached by a staircase of lava stone blocks built in Norman times. Here, in the year 262, by tradition, Bishop Everius carved out a church dedicated to Mary: it would be among the first in Europe named for the Virgin.
On the ceiling and walls you can read the traces of the centuries: a terracotta brick arch, an arcosolium walled up to make the altar, two lava benches. Of the ancient decoration a Madonna and Child remains on the north wall, its faces barely legible.
The well was turned into a baptismal font: baptism was by immersion, after the age of seven. In Norman times, with the change of rite, the well took on a cylindrical shape for washing babies' heads.
The entrance arch is cut into prehistoric lava and bears the words Gloria in Excelsis Deo on a ribbon held by 18th-century putti. Beside it are painted shepherds, in a Renaissance taste, recalling the reopening of 1558.
The cave, in fact, was forgotten for centuries: the spring that fed the well flooded it and filled it with mud. The Carmelite friars cleaned it out only in 1558, and the cave became Santa Maria di Betlemme, tied to the cult of the nativity scene.
The church above was less fortunate: partly demolished in 1674 to make room for the Bastion of San Michele, it collapsed in the earthquake of 1693. The reconstruction took more than a hundred years, and the church reopened only in 1801, dedicated to Saint Cajetan.
Don't miss
• The underground church.
• The well turned into a baptismal font.
• The entrance arch with the words Gloria in Excelsis Deo.
Did you know?
• The lava cave perhaps formed during an ancient eruption of Etna.
• The Confraternity of San Gaetano paid for the church's reconstruction after the earthquake.