San Michele Arcangelo ai Minoriti is a Roman Catholic parish church and attached monastery in the city center of

Catania 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 ...

, region of Sicily, Italy. The former monastery, to the left of the facade, now houses shops on the ground-floor, and above are the offices of the Provincial government and the ''Prefettura'' or ''Prefecture'' (National office in province).

History

The

Clerics Regular Minor The Clerics Regular Minor ( la, Ordo Clericorum Regularium Minorum), commonly known as the Caracciolini or Adorno Fathers, is a Roman Catholic religious order of priests and brothers founded by Francis Caracciolo, Augustine Adorno, and Fabrizio ...

, or Adorno Fathers, known in Italy as ''Caracciolini'' after their founder, Saint

Francesco Caracciolo Prince Francesco Caracciolo (18 January 1752 – 30 June 1799) was an Italian admiral and revolutionary. Early life and British service Caracciolo was born in Naples to a noble family. It is likely that he was named after St. Francis Caracci ...

, and in Catania as ''Minoriti'' was an order of priests and brothers, approved by the pope in 1588, and mainly dedicated to pastoral care of the infirm and needy. They first came to Catania in 1625, on the invitation by the bishop Innocenzo Massimo. In 1628, they were assigned an old church dedicated to St Michael Archangel, located on what is now via Aetna. In 1630, the aristocrat Giambattista Paternò endowed the order with his inheritance. Like most of the town, the 1693 earthquake levelled the prior church, and the minorites commissioned a new church and monastery. The reconstruction was patronized by father superior Bartolomeo Asmundo, who survived the earthquake. The monastery was suppressed in 1866, and the property occupied by the deputies of the provincial council and the prefecture. There is a second nearby church, now a parish church, with associated smaller convent that belonged to the friars of the same order: the church of the ''Immacolata Concezione Beata Maria vergine ai Minoritelli'' on via Gesualdo Clemente 11. That small Baroque church is also notable for being attached to an arch from the original Roman aqueduct of Catania.

Description

The new church was designed by

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 fam ...

, and completed by Francesco Battaglia. The convent was mainly built by Battaglia. Flanking the facade on the left, atop the first story pediment is a statue of the blessed Bartolomeo Simorilli, first provost of the Catania church. On the same spot on the right once stood a statue of St

Francis Caracciolo Francis Caracciolo (October 13, 1563 – June 4, 1608), born Ascanio Pisquizio, was an Italian Catholic priest who co-founded the Order of the Clerics Regular Minor with John Augustine Adorno and Fabrizio Caracciolo. He decided to adopt a relig ...

(founder of ''Minoriti'' order), but it was destroyed by Allied World War II bombardment. The pilaster-rich

Baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...

facade has a marble stairway, which internally leads to a double staircase. The interior has a central nave and two aisles. The cupola, begun in 1771, as completed in 1787. It is covered inside with blue tiles, that have a shimmering sky blue color on sunny days. In the southern nave is an altarpiece depicting ''St Agatha of Sicily pleads for the sparing of Catania'' by

Marcello Leopardi Marcello Leopardi (1750–1795) was an Italian painter, depicting both sacred subjects and history in a late-Baroque and early Neoclassic style. He was born presumably in Potenza Picena. By 1768, he was participating in contests sponsored by the ...

. He also painted two other altarpieces: one of the ''Glory of St Joseph'' and of ''St Francesco Caracciolo'', the latter completed by Leopardi's pupil Ferreri. There is also an altarpiece depicting ''Angel St Raphael and Tobias'' by Giovannina M. Piazza. There is an altarpiece depicting the ''Virgin of the Annunciation'' by Guglielmo Borremans. The main altar is surrounded by wooden stalls for the monks. The organ is richly decorated.Catania reconstructed
by comune of Catania. File:San Michele Arcangelo ai Minoriti (Catania) 23 01 2020 03.jpg, Holy water font made from polychrome marble File:San Michele Arcangelo ai Minoriti (Catania) 23 01 2020 08.jpg, View of the apse with organ and hemicycle of choir stalls File:San Michele Arcangelo ai Minoriti (Catania) 23 01 2020 11.jpg, Interior of dome File:San Michele Arcangelo ai Minoriti (Catania) 23 01 2020 02.jpg, ''St Agatha'' altarpiece by Leopardi File:San Michele Arcangelo ai Minoriti (Catania) 23 01 2020 07.jpg, ''St Francis Caracciolo'' by Leopardi File:San Michele Arcangelo ai Minoriti (Catania) 23 01 2020 12.jpg, ''Glory of St Joseph'' by Leopardi

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Michele Arcangelo Catania 18th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in Italy Roman Catholic churches in Catania