Church of San Giovanni degli Eremiti

The church of San Giovanni degli Eremiti is a national monument located in the historic center of Palermo, near the Norman palace.

Giulio Carlo Argan writes: «The Normans who established their dynasty in Sicily in 1072 destroy the monuments, not the tradition of Byzantine and Arab architecture.

San Giovanni degli Eremiti in Palermo (1132) is Arab in the clear relationship between the cubic bodies and the hemispherical domes ».

The church is built according to the canons of Sicilian-Norman architecture; it is a Romanesque church which externally resembles oriental buildings.

This reference to the East is even more emphasized by the bright red domes, restored in the nineteenth century by the architect Giuseppe Patricolo, perhaps similar to the original.

Map: Church of San Giovanni degli Eremiti