Description of the attraction
San Giovanni degli Eremiti is one of the large monasteries in Palermo, once owned by Benedictine monks. Located between Palazzo dei Normanni and the Church of San Giuseppe in Cafasso, it is a monument of Arab-Norman architecture.
According to legend, at the very beginning of the 1st millennium, a pagan temple of Mercury stood on this place. In the 6th century, by order of Pope Gregory I, a monastery was founded here, consecrated in honor of the Apostle Hermias. And when Sicily was captured by the Arabs, they turned the monastery into a mosque. True, historians and archaeologists have never been able to find traces of both an ancient pagan temple and a later monastery and mosque on the site of San Giovanni degli Eremiti, so all of the above remains only a legend.
It is reliably known, however, that in 1136 Roger II ordered the construction of a Benedictine monastery next to his royal palace for hermits from Montevergine. Interestingly, the abbot of the monastery was ordained a bishop and became the king's personal confessor. He also had the right to perform divine services in the famous Palatine Chapel. Roger II himself also bequeathed to bury all uncrowned members of his family in this monastery, but his order was never carried out.
The reasons for the desolation of the monastery are still unknown. In the middle of the 15th century, Cardinal Giovanni Nicola Ursino, with the permission of Pope Paul II, gave the building to the monks from San Martino delle Scale. And in 1866, San Giovanni degli Eremiti, like most monasteries in Italy, was abolished. At the end of the 19th century, large-scale restoration work was carried out within its walls, as a result of which the building acquired its original Arab-Norman appearance. Today it houses a museum.
The architecture of the monastery and the church associated with it is quite remarkable. A distinctive feature of the church is the five red hemispherical domes typical of the mosques of Egypt and North Africa. In Palermo, something similar can be seen in the Church of San Cataldo. To the right of the church is a small rectangular building, which is considered a modified Arab mosque of the 9-11 centuries. However, no evidence has been found for this. Another feature of San Giovanni degli Eremiti is the fact that its cloister, the gallery that forms the courtyard, has no roof.
The interior decoration of the religious complex is very strict - no traces of mosaics or frescoes were found here, which probably disappeared due to the long absence of the roof of the church.
