La Cattolica is off the beaten path
of touristy places to visit in Italy. It is not a town but a church and sits in
the mountains of Calabria overlooking the Adriatic Sea. It is in the commune of
the city of Stilo which is the town of origin for the ancestors of former
Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta.
The surprise one will receive when they
visit La Cattolica is its size.
Pictures on the internet cause it to seem as if it is a large building, of
which it is not. The Byzantines built the church in the 9th century
(800 AD), when Calabria was part of that Empire.
The word Cattolica derives from the Greek word katholiki which referred to churches built with baptisteries. La
Cattolica is one of the most important examples of Byzantine architecture; it
follows the inscribed cross plan as you can see by the structures on the roof.
There are five-barrel like short round towers with windows and with the roofing
tiles on the towers laid in a circular pattern. Inside the church are four
large columns holding up the ceiling, which also divides the interior into nine
similar spaces, and three apses. The construction is of brick and the interior
walls were, at one time, full of frescoes; a few of them remain. The apse
looking out on the valley had a bell installed in 1577 in accordance with the
change of rites from the Greek to the Latin.
In the interior are some Arabic
inscriptions, indicating the Arabs might have used it as a Moslem religious
shrine. The Saracens occupied the region starting in 847 AD for twenty five
years.
The chapel inside may be able to
hold seventy people comfortably. The building is still in use as a church for
special occasions such as marriages and baptisms. It is a national monument and
well visited by Italian tourists.
