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Aeolian Islands - The Monastery of San Bartolomeo

This is one of the four Benedictine monasteries built in Sicily by Roger the Norman. Made mainly from the stone blocks of the Greek walls and other materials from the hilltop settlement destroyed by the Saracens, the monastery and cloister were built next to the church of the same name. The church was later transformed into a cathedral with a nave and two aisles, which meant incorporating one side of the cloister’s portico into the right-hand aisle of the cathedral. The Episcopal Palace was then built, and the remaining spaces of the portico and interior courtyard were put to other use. For a long time, the splendid columns, capitals and cross vaults were incorporated into thick walls that broke up the original volumes, so that they were completely forgotten until the 1970s. Finally, in 1979, work began on the difficult task of rediscovery and restoration of the monastery and cloister.

Today you can visit the remains of the old monastery, which has three sides giving on to an interior courtyard and is given a sense of harmony by a series of columns and capitals, cross vaults and megaliths that were all skilfully made from what was left of the classical temples destroyed during the Arab invasion of 838 AD. Thus, the style and diameter of each of the columns is different from the rest: some are smooth and others ribbed, while some are single pieces and others are built in sections. Just as varied are the capitals, which are decorated with the Byzantine animal figures typical of the style of the Calabrian-Sicilian master builders who must have built the monastery.

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