Page 100 - The Rough Guide of Sicily

humanity and the city, while guides will help you identify surrounding landmarks.

San Giovanni degli Eremiti
Via dei Benedettini • Daily 9am–5pm, summer until 6.30pm • €6

Built in 1132, the deconsecrated church of San Giovanni degli Eremiti – St John of
the Hermits – is the most obviously Arabic of the city’s Norman relics, its five ochre

domes topping a small church that was built upon the remains of an earlier mosque
(part of which, an adjacent empty hall, is still visible). It was especially favoured by
its founder, Roger II, who granted the monks of San Giovanni 21 barrels of tuna a
year, a prized commodity controlled by the Crown. A path leads up through citrus
trees to the church, behind which lie some celebrated late thirteenth-century cloisters –
perfect twin columns with slightly pointed arches surrounding a wilted garden.