CHURCH OF S. FRANCESCO BORGIA

The church of S. Francesco Borgia is located on the scenic Via dei Crociferi. The Jesuit order settled in Catania in 1556, where it built the church of the Santissima Ascensione with which it soon associated the college that played the role of a university institution. With the 1693 earthquake, the Jesuit complex was destroyed, and a few years after the earthquake its reconstruction began. The new church is dedicated to the Jesuit saint Francis Borgia who is considered among the main collaborators of the founder of the Society, St. Ignatius of Loyola, and who originated the Jesuit missions in Peru and Florida. With the expulsion of the Jesuits from the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies in 1767, the church with the adjoining college became part of the royal domain, and the Society of Jesus has never since regained possession of the architectural complex. The church is located on the southern side of the Jesuit college. The two-order facade is designed in the linear style of Roman classicism: columns, Doric coupled in the first order Ionic in the second, mark the horizontal division of the facade. The interior has a basilica plan with three naves. The central dome is frescoed around 1760 by Catanian painter Olivio Sozzi: the figure of Christ dominates over themes and figures that recall the Jesuit order. In the pendentives allegorical figures symbolize the four continents: Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas, over which the evangelizing work of the Society of Jesus extended. Among the works the church contains are a high relief depicting St. Francis Borgia baptizing the King of the Indies and the altar of Christ, with a gilded wooden reliquary and polychrome wooden statue of Christ.