In the last decades of the sixteenth century the Jesuits chose via degli Studi for their college in Caltagirone, and beside it rose the Church of the Circumcision, which locals know simply as the chiesa del Gesù. Building began in 1571; by 1574 the Messina architect Andrea Calamech was directing the work, and between 1589 and 1592 Antonuzzo Gagini had a hand in it. In 1593 a marble inscription dedicated the temple to the name of Jesus, closing the first phase of the site.
What to see
The façade faces south-west and is arranged in two orders. The lower one is older and survived the 1693 Val di Noto earthquake that flattened the rest of the buildings. Niches between the pilasters once held statues of eight saints of the Society of Jesus, and a cartouche beside the doorway names Saint Francis Xavier; the two scroll volutes linking the orders carry Saint Peter and Saint Paul, with the Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph above. The portal has paired columns with Corinthian capitals on tall plinths, its lower shafts worked with arabesques, closing in a pediment with a central lunette and a wrought-iron cross. Inside, the plan is a Latin cross with a single nave and broad side chapels; the transept keeps carved stonework by Antonuzzo Gagini. The chapels hold notable paintings: a Nativity attributed to Polidoro Caldara da Caravaggio, a Saint Michael the Archangel by Filippo Paladini, and a Pietà with the apostle James painted by Paladini in 1607. In the Chapel of Santa Maria Maggiore a carved and gilded wooden frame surrounds the Marian painting and encloses seventeen small urns of relics.
Visiting
In the presbytery, raised by a step and closed off by a marble balustrade, a gilded wooden structure holds beneath an arch the canvas of the Circumcision of Jesus that gives the church its name; nearby, the sixteenth-century wooden Crucifix is attributed to Calogero Cusumano. Above the entrance survives the wooden choir loft built in 1623, with its side tribunes and pulpit. The building carries the marks of a hard history: closed after the 1908 Messina earthquake on the advice of mayor Luigi Sturzo and reopened in 1910, it was hit by the American bombing of 9 July 1943, which tore the main door from its hinges and shattered the windows. Restorations from 1955 to 1959 led to its reopening in 1960.
Our editors' tip
Don't stop at the main door, restored in 2018 together with the Jesuits' “Arbor ordinis” canvas: the church makes most sense as part of the whole college complex, which after the order's suppression in 1767 passed to Teresian nuns and later became a school. A short walk along via degli Studi shows how the church and the convent buildings beside it belong together.