Santa Maria della Valle di Iosaphat, or Josaphat is a small

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

style Roman Catholic church built just below the former acropolis of Paternò in Sicily. It is also referred to as the ''Chiesa della Gancia''.

History

The church was built in 1072 under the patronage of the

Adelasia da Monferrato Adelaide del Vasto (Adelasia, Azalaïs) ( – 16 April 1118) was countess of Sicily as the third spouse of Roger I of Sicily, and Queen consort of Jerusalem by marriage to Baldwin I of Jerusalem. She served as regent of Sicily during the mi ...

, the wife of Count Roger I of Sicily. The external outlines of the church retain some of the Norman gothic elements, but the interior has been refurbished and retains little of the original decoration. The wooden interior ceiling dates to the 16th century. The facade of the church rises after a few broad dark basaltic stairs. The ogival portal has decorated pilasters. An adjacent door on the right flank has been filled in. The facade rises to a merlionated roofline, apt for the fortress-like enclosures that surrounded the nearby hill-top Norman castle. the church stood adjacent to a former Benedictine monastery, and later hospital of Santissimo Salvatore, now converted in to a civic art museum, the ''Palazzo delle Arti''''Children in roof tiles: a case study from medieval Paternò (Sicily)'' by Alessandra Morrone, Dario Piombino-Mascali, Maria Randazzo, Giulia Raimondi, Laura Maniscalco. Medicina Historica 2021, Volume 5, number 1, pages 1-14.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Maria Valle Josaphat Paterno Roman Catholic churches in Paternò Paternò 11th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in Italy