In Palermo, a crossroads of cultures, people and knowledge, embraced by its lush greenery, the religious-monumental complex of San Giovanni degli Eremiti shines.
A beauty aware of the inexorable flow of time and the symbolic value of dialogue, as an essential factor for meeting and inclusion, emanate from its living stone; as a precarious and precious ruins, the complex of San Giovanni degli Eremiti sings the notes of the most worthy coexistence between peoples.
A long story
The bare stone of the complex of San Giovanni degli Eremiti, like a book crossed by precious writing, master of time, tells of a long construction process, crossed by multiple phases, conspicuous passage and as many knowledges.
Foto di Floriana Savino, complesso di San Giovanni degli Eremiti chiostro, Palermo 2024
If the complex known today, as evidenced by a fundamental document found and dating back to 1148, dates back to the Norman reign of Ruggero II, it also fundamental to connect the existence of the same complex to a widespread practice throughout history. As, in fact, it was for the Malatesta Temple, which the indomitable lord of Rimini immediately imagined in his mind as being built on the ruins of a pre-existing conglomerate, in the same way San Giovanni degli Eremiti moves on what architecturally preceded it on that site.
In this regard, historians believe that the Norman church and monastery were built starting from evident pre-existences dating back to the 6th century and to a project wanted by Pope Gregory the Great.
Starting from the primary construction of an extremely evocative pagan temple, the area was soon affected by the project of the Gregorian monastery dedicated to Sant’Ermete. The 10th century, marked by Arab influence, made the same site a high expression of a different architectural taste, leading, between 1130 and the 1148, to becoming the home of the Benedictine monks of Montevergine, at the behest of Ruggero II.
Foto di Floriana Savino, San Giovanni degli Eremiti, Palermo 2024
Foto di Floriana Savino, San Giovanni degli Eremiti, Palermo 2024
The strategic position of the San Giovanni degli Eremiti complex with respect to the Royal Palace made this place of worship very fond of the rulers, who for a given periods also used the space as an area of eternal sleep for the illustrious member of the family.
Foto di Floriana Savino, complesso di San Giovanni degli Eremiti chiostro, Palermo 2024
Foto di Floriana Savino, complesso di San Giovanni degli Eremiti chiostro, Palermo 2024
The architecture, the shapes, the symbolism
Intervening to free the valuable complex from the tampering and modifications that had occurred over the centuries, in 1877 the architect Giuseppe Patricolo set to work to bring to light the original beauty and color of a symbolic place of the city.
The ancient traces of plaster found on site seem to guide the scholar towards the rediscovery of the phenomenal coloring of the domes above the church of San Giovanni.
A powerful volume, with a harmonious and regular cadence, supports the beautiful dome of the church, which soar beyond the lush greenery and the protective walls of the complex.
The bare stone of a cross-committed construction dialogues with an evocative play of large square spans and a dynamic ogival arch, which effectively separates them. The tri-apsidal includes the central one projecting outwards. The diaconicon and the prothesis, respectively located to the south and north of the sanctuary, also include small apses, which fall within the thick masonry of the church. From the same volume as the prothesis rises the valuable bell tower with as impressive quadrangular shape.
Foto di Floriana Savino, complesso di San Giovanni degli Eremiti vista dall’alto, Palermo 2024
The natural beauty of the harmony between the progressive cubic volumes courts the sweetness of the hemispherical domes, which seal the upper surface of the building. Such a scansion of the compositional project refers to the wonderful Islamic-style architecture, abundant in North African territory. The complex of San Giovanni degli Eremiti, evoking simple shapes such as the square and the circle in its structure, celebrates an idea of inclusiveness and meeting between different cultures, which moves in the preciousness of the symbolic.
Its architecture, now restored in immense beauty, now made precarious by the passage of time, offers the possibility of wearing with sight stories of commitment and diversified manual contributions, which in fact have made our peninsula rich, welcoming and generous.
Foto di Floriana Savino, complesso di San Giovanni degli Eremiti, Palermo 2024
The Arab Room and what remain of a cloister
A small open passage in the church has given a further and passionate possibility of enjoying the wonderful complex: continuing along the narrated path it is, in fact, possible to access an evocative interior, calls the Arab room. The studies carried out and the commitment of Giovanni Patronico have in fact led to the consideration that, an all likelihood, it is pre-existing ancient Islamic structure, reused by the Norman builders resorting to structural modifications and further compositional insertions.
Continuing into the open space, scented by flowers and characterized by the most devout silence, you soon come across what remains of the north-western colonnade of the ancient cloister. An elegant and rhythmic sequence, sealed by ogival arches with paired columns and double rings, embraces that space where today green reigns majestically. Although there is no certain dating regarding the construction of the cloister, it is highly likely that it dates back to the end of the 13th century.
Foto di Floriana Savino, complesso di San Giovanni degli Eremiti chiostro, Palermo 2024
Life is in the garden…
[…] It was a dream, as has been said, out of this world,
an exquisitely internal and also structurally intimate fact.
Jean-Paul Roux, 1986
The garden, as an essential and primordial aspiration common to countless cultures, sees in the calm and peace that dwells in it, the unrepeatable possibility of feeling in contact with the most authentic being.
As Jean-Paul Roux points out:
[…] the real traditional Muslim garden […] does not look outward, but looks inward,
towards the center, almost towards the heart of man.
[…] In concrete terms, this vision translates into the “irrigation of a fragment of the desert”
Surrounded by high walls, reaching out towards the intimacy of a space that does not know the external gaze, a fragrant garden, which often resembles a carpet of a thousand beautiful colours, lives on harmony and its breath.
Foto di Floriana Savino, complesso di San Giovanni degli Eremiti chiostro, Palermo 2024
The majesty of a lush greenery, Mediterranean and at the same time exotic for some species hosted, could, ultimately, mislead us regarding the very origins of the Palermo garden. Although, in fact, it is very easy to abandon ourselves to the dream and the image that gardens such as that of the Generalife in Gradana can arouse in us, it is good to consider how the green space, which embraces the complex of San Giovanni degli Eremiti, was thus fertilized and implemented on the basis of a purely nineteenth-century and romantic tension. It follows that the great variety of exotic species brought, coming from distant and discovered lands, still today season the beauty of a space that smacks of multiple encounters.
Foto di Floriana Savino, complesso di San Giovanni degli Eremiti chiostro, Palermo 2024
Reference bibliography
Marrone M., The kingdom of Sicily from the Normans to the Aragonese, Solfanelli, 2014.
Roux J.P., Gardens of Islam: a dream outside the world, in AA.VV., Masterpieces of human genius, Reader’s Digest Italia, Milan 1986.
Touch F.P. (ed.), Science, art and culture in Norman Sicily, Officina Studi Medioevali, Rome 2021.