Church of San Giovanni in Militello in Val di Catania
Church of San Giovanni Battista in Militello in Val di Catania is a valuable and ancient place of worship in the village.
The church was originally annexed to the Benedictine monastery of San Giovanni Battista, also known as the Badìa. The complex was founded in 1470 by Countess Eleonora Speciale, widow of Baron Blasco II Barresi di Militello, who retired here in the last years of his life. The earthquake of 1693 damaged the structure, which was later restored. After 1866, the complex became state property: the monastery was sold to private individuals who converted it into homes, while the church was redeemed and transferred to the Parish of Santa Maria della Stella.
The façade, delimited by lateral pilasters, has a crowning with a flat frame above the pilasters and a gabled frame on the central body. In the center is the valuable Renaissance-style portal, recovered during the restoration carried out following the earthquake of 1693. Above the portal is a rectangular opening flanked by volutes.
The interior, with a single nave, is embellished with a valuable eighteenth-century floor in Calatina majolica with a serial design. Since the annexed convent was a cloistered convent, above the door of the church there is a tribune, accessible by a spiral staircase, characterized by the traditional jealousies through which the nuns could attend religious functions.
The eighteenth-century statue of St. John the Baptist is kept on the high altar. Other works belonging to the church, of notable artistic value, are now kept, for security reasons, at the Treasury of Santa Maria La Stella: the canvases by Alessandro Comparetto depicting the Nativity of St. John, made in 1631, and the Beheading of St. John, made in 1634; a pyx from the fifteenth century; a frontal in gold thread.
