Doors which don’t open

This door with its baroque bronze fantasies was shut three days in a row. Every day we passed in front it and stopped for a glass of freshly squeezed orange and lime juice at a vendor who took his stand in front of it. Eventually I asked Ettore, which is what we decided the vendor’s name was, and I was told that it was usually kept shut. Chiesa San Benedetto, as the former church and nunnery is called, is not functional.

The entrance was not on Via Crociferi, where the covered arch connects two parts of the former nunnery. Instead, you have to go around the corner on Via Teatro Greco to find the little ticket office which gives you entry to the incredibly opulent interior. There has been a church here since the 1334 CE, but like every major building in Catania, it fell in the Sicilian earthquake of 1693. Like much of eastern and southern Sicily, this gave a blank slate on which the late Baroque could release its energies. The church was rebuilt during the period 1714 to 1763 under the direction of the noted Sicilian architect Giovanni Battista Vaccarini.

Finally, on the afternoon that the museum was open I was overcome by heat in the afternoon and had to spend an hour in the air conditioned interior of a nearby cafe, spooning up a granita di lemone. So I missed the frescoes by the Sicilian artist Giovanni Tuccari. I am not a great fan of the late baroque and rococco. The Family explored the gilded interior by herself and the photo gallery above (which you can explore with a click) was evidence of her enjoyment of the interior without my snide comments about gilding and questions about why they didn’t name it San Giovanni, since both the architect and major painter were named after that saint. As a result, both of us were happy afterwards.