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San Placido, Catania
San Placido is a Roman Catholic church and former-Benedictine monastery located on the piazza of the same name in Catania, Sicily, southern Italy. The complex, two blocks east of the Catania Cathedral, spans a polygonal block encompassed by the Via Vittorio Emanuele II (''il corso'') on the north, the via Landolina to the east, the via Museo Biscari on a south diagonal, and to the west the piazza San Placido and Via Porticello. Part of the convent is occupied by the ''Palazzo della Cultura'', used for cultural activities and exhibitions. The ''Monastero di San Placido'' also serves presently as the Archivio di Stato di Catania. History and description The church and monastery for nuns, following the Benedictine order, was inaugurated in 1420, putatively atop the ruins of an ancient Roman temple dedicated to Bacchus, and which legend held was also was the site of a house in which Saint Agatha was born. The structures were commissioned in the early 15th century, with donations from ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Catania - Chiesa Di San Placido - Panoramio
Catania (, , Sicilian and ) is the second largest municipality in Sicily, after Palermo. Despite its reputation as the second city of the island, Catania is the largest Sicilian conurbation, among the largest in Italy, as evidenced also by the presence of important road and rail transport infrastructures as well as by the main airport in Sicily, fifth in Italy. It is located on Sicily's east coast, at the base of the active volcano, Mount Etna, and it faces the Ionian Sea. It is the capital of the 58-municipality region known as the Metropolitan City of Catania, which is the seventh-largest metropolitan city in Italy. The population of the city proper is 311,584, while the population of the Metropolitan City of Catania is 1,107,702. Catania was founded in the 8th century BC by Chalcidian Greeks. The city has weathered multiple geologic catastrophes: it was almost completely destroyed by a catastrophic earthquake in 1169. A major eruption and lava flow from nearby Mount Etna ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Basilica Della Collegiata
The Ancient Royal and Eminent Basilica Collegiate of Our Lady of the Alms (in italian known as ''Antichissima Regia ed Insigne Basilica Collegiata di Maria Santissima dell'Elemosina''), better known as Basilica della Colleggiata, is a church in Catania, Sicily, southern Italy. Finished in 1794, it is an example of Sicilian Baroque. History The church was firstly built in the early Middle Ages, but rebuilt in the early 18th century, after the earthquake of 1693 that had destroyed most of the city. The church was elevated to a collegiate church by Pope Eugenius IV. Architecture The design of the church is attributed to Angelo Italia (1628–1700), who changed the orientation of the previous edifice destroyed by the earthquake, in order to have it facing the new via Uzeda (current Etnea Street) according to the new urban plan for the city. The façade, designed by the polish architect Stefano Ittar (1724–1790), is one of the most notable examples of late Baroque in Catania. Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Francesco Borromini
Francesco Borromini (, ), byname of Francesco Castelli (; 25 September 1599 – 2 August 1667), was an Italian architect born in the modern Swiss canton of Ticino"Francesco Borromini." ''.'' Web. 30 Oct. 2010. who, with his contemporaries Gian Lorenzo Bernini and , was a leading figure in the emergence of Roman |
Stefano Ittar
Stefano Ittar (March 15, 1724 - January 18, 1790) was a Polish-Italian architect. Biography Ittar was born in Owrucz (then in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, now in Ukraine), where his father, a member of one of Italy's aristocratic families the Guidone de Hittar, had fled following a disagreement with the Grand Duke of Tuscany. While Ittar was still young his family moved to Rome, where under the patronage of Cardinal Alessandro Albani Ittar later studied architecture at this time influenced in Rome by the concepts of Francesco Borromini. After a brief period in Spain Ittar settled in Catania in 1765. Catania had largely recovered from the damage caused by the earthquake of 1693, largely due to the efforts of the city architect Giovanni Battista Vaccarini, who had rebuilt vast tracts of the city in Baroque style, such as the area around the Cathedral. It was at this time Ittar met Don Ignazio Paternò, Prince of Biscari, who at this time was reconstructing the ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Baroque Architecture
Baroque architecture is a highly decorative and theatrical style which appeared in Italy in the early 17th century and gradually spread across Europe. It was originally introduced by the Catholic Church, particularly by the Jesuits, as a means to combat the Reformation and the Protestant church with a new architecture that inspired surprise and awe. It reached its peak in the High Baroque (1625–1675), when it was used in churches and palaces in Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, Bavaria and Austria. In the Late Baroque period (1675–1750), it reached as far as Russia and the Spanish and Portuguese colonies in Latin America. About 1730, an even more elaborately decorative variant called Rococo appeared and flourished in Central Europe. Baroque architects took the basic elements of Renaissance architecture, including domes and colonnades, and made them higher, grander, more decorated, and more dramatic. The interior effects were often achieved with the use of ''quadratura'', or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Michele Rapisardi
Michele Rapisardi (December 27, 1822 in Catania, Sicily – 1886 in Florence) was an Italian painter. Biography Initially trained with his father, the painter Giuseppe Rapisardi, he then had a classic education locally in Catania, and then obtained a stipend from the city to study in the studio of Cavalliere Giovanni Costa (painter, born 1826), Giovanni Costa in Rome. He won a number of prizes at the Accademia di San Luca. After four years he traveled to Florence, Venice, then Paris. He was eclectic and prolific. He painted a number of genre works, based on history and drama: ''Episode of the 1301 Siege of Messina''; ''Main Italian Poets at the Court of Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, Frederico II in SiciIy''; ''Vatti a far monaca!''; ''Hamlet before Ophelia''; ''La prima sventura di Luís de Camões, Luigi Camoens''; ''Le castellane e il menestrello''; ''Il trovatore cacciato in bando''; ''Dante and Beatrice''; ''The escape of Bianca Cappello''; ''Le maggiolate''; ''Mad Oph ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Michele De Napoli
Michele de Napoli (April 28, 1808 – March 24, 1892) was an Italian painter, mainly of grand manner historic and religious paintings in a Neoclassic style in Naples, Italy. Biography He was born in Terlizzi, in the province of Bari to Giuseppe de Napoli and Maria Michele Mastrandea. Initially intending to become a lawyer, he moved to Naples at the age of 19 to pursue studies, but became attracted to art. After graduating from law in 1833, he became a pupil of Costanzo Angelini. The painting of ''Alcibiades'' gained him a scholarship to study in Rome. He painted in frescoes for the church of Monteverginella (1843). He also painted frescoes on the ''Martyrdom of Santa Lucia'' (1845), for the church of Santa Lucia. He painted the sipario or theater curtain (1849) at the Teatro del Fondo in Naples. He painted a ''Vision of Santa Maria Maddalena'' (1853) for the church of Santa Maria Maddalena ai Cristallini He painted a ''St Francis of Assisi with Stigmata'' (1853) now in C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tympanum (architecture)
A tympanum (plural, tympana; from Greek and Latin words meaning "drum") is the semi-circular or triangular decorative wall surface over an entrance, door or window, which is bounded by a lintel and an arch. It often contains pedimental sculpture or other imagery or ornaments. Many architectural styles include this element. Alternatively, the tympanum may hold an inscription, or in modern times, a clock face. History In ancient Greek, Roman and Christian architecture, tympana of religious buildings often contain pedimental sculpture or mosaics with religious imagery. A tympanum over a doorway is very often the most important, or only, location for monumental sculpture on the outside of a building. In classical architecture, and in classicising styles from the Renaissance onwards, major examples are usually triangular; in Romanesque architecture, tympana more often has a semi-circular shape, or that of a thinner slice from the top of a circle, and in Gothic architecture they ha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1693 Sicily Earthquake
The 1693 Sicily earthquake struck parts of southern Italy near Sicily, Calabria, and Malta on January 11 at around 21:00 local time. This earthquake was preceded by a damaging foreshock on January 9. The main quake had an estimated magnitude of 7.4 on the moment magnitude scale, the most powerful in Italian recorded history, and a maximum intensity of XI (''Extreme'') on the Mercalli intensity scale, destroying at least 70 towns and cities, seriously affecting an area of and causing the death of about 60,000 people. The earthquake was followed by tsunamis that devastated the coastal villages on the Ionian Sea and in the Straits of Messina. Almost two-thirds of the entire population of Catania were killed. The epicentre of the disaster was probably close to the coast, possibly offshore, although the exact position remains unknown. The extent and degree of destruction caused by the earthquake resulted in the extensive rebuilding of the towns and cities of southeastern Sicily, partic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
San Giuliano, Catania
San Giuliano is a Roman Catholic church and attached convent located on Via Crocifero #36 of Catania, Sicily, southern Italy. It stands across from the Collegio dei Gesuiti (Jesuit college), whose church of San Francesco Borgia also faces Crociferi. Two blocks north on Crociferi is the baroque church of San Camillo de Lellis. History and description The church was erected at the site of a prior church that had been razed by the 1693 earthquake. It is dedicated the St Julian the Hospitaller. The present late-Baroque church was built between 1739 and 1751 using designs by Giuseppe Palazzotto and Vincenzo Caffarelli. The church has an elaborate convex facade. The upper story has windows shielded by a dense iron grate, these windows were used by the cloistered Benedictine nuns of the attached monastery to watch the splendid procession of the day of Sant'Agata as it passed by. The portal has an added shield of a tall metal fence. The facade pediment is broken and each pediment holds a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
San Benedetto, Catania
San Benedetto is a late-Baroque architecture, Roman Catholic church and former Benedictine monastery in the city Catania, Sicily, southern Italy. The church facade faces Via Crociferi, parallels across via San Benedetto the former-Jesuit church of San Francesco Borgia, and both are about a block south along Crociferi from the church and convent of San Giuliano. Entrance to church and monastery appear to be through Piazza Asmundo #9 near the apse of the church. History and description Dedicated to St. Benedict of Nursia, a first church at the site was completed in April 1334, endowed by the noblewoman Alemanna Lumella. However, like most buildings in town, it was razed by the 1693 Sicily earthquake; only 5 nuns survived the disaster. The church was rebuilt by 1714, but construction of the monastery continued until 1763. Giovanni Battista Vaccarini was one of the main architects. The church is part of a monastic complex including also the Badia Maggiore and the Badia Minore, conne ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
