Italy - Cattolica Monastery in Stilo and Basilian-Byzantine complexes

The Cattolica monastery in Stilo is the most representative of the Byzantine Basilian monuments. At the time of its construction, Stilo was the leading Byzantine centre of the region and a magnet for hermits and Basilian monks, who found shelter in its caves, creating an extremely important rock settlement in the area. This is the context for the Cattolica monastery, built between the tenth and eleventh centuries - a tiny red-brick structure set into the mountain, which replicates a type of religious building common in the Peloponnesus, Armenia and Anatolia. The church has a Greek cross plan inscribed within a square and three apses symmetrically arranged around a central dome. The vaults are supported by columns plundered from ancient buildings in Magna Graecia, which rest on bases formed by upturned capitals. The interior space is divided into nine equal squares, without favouring the central area, as in the contemporary church of San Marco in Rossano Calabro. The elevation shows a little triapsidal cube built of brick, topped by five small domes encased in cylindrical drums with brick facing. The layout of the building follows the quincunx model, in which the architectural elements are arranged in the same manner as the number five on a die. The external brick decoration is very fine. Other important examples of Basilian architecture: S. Maria della Roccella in Squillace (province of Catanzaro), situated close to the sea. This single-nave church features a raised transept that is connected by a great arch flanked by two smaller and narrower ones, a stepped presbytery and a crypt divided into three choirs. No trace of the roof remains. The plan of the end section is evidently a derivation of the Cluny II type, while the abbey building belongs to the Western Romanesque architectural tradition, enabling it to be dated to the eleventh century, before the fusion of the Eastern Basilian culture with the Western Benedictine one. San Giovanni Teresti in Bivongi (province of Reggio Calabria) takes its name from the monk known as John Theristus (meaning "Harvester") who fled the Islamic persecutions of tenth-eleventh century Sicily. It features a long, narrow nave preceded by a quadrangular atrium. Inside the church, a pointed triumphal arch connects the nave to the tripartite presbytery. The aisles, roofed with cross vaults, communicate with the nave through round arches, while an exceptionally high dome rises above the nave, characterising the exterior of the church. All that remains of the old complex of Santa Maria del Pathirion in Rossano (province of Cosenza), (1101-1105, twelfth century) - one of the finest Basilian monasteries of the region - is the basilica-plan church with a nave and two aisles and a triapsidal presbytery. The nave is divided by sandstone columns without capitals that support ogival arches. The raised presbytery is divided into three apses, while the mosaic floor bearing a mid-twelfth-century inscription features rotae motifs containing figures of animals. The church of San Marco in Rossano (province of Cosenza) stands on a rocky bank. The compact building features a Greek cross plan inscribed within a square, broken only by three identical semicircular apses. The corners are topped by four small domes of the same size, dominated by a central one with a higher drum, reflecting the interior volumes on the exterior of the building. The church of Santa Filomena in Santa Severina (province of Crotone) has a rectangular plan with eastern apse. It is covered by a ridged roof topped with a dome with tall cylindrical drum, decorated with blind arches with slender columns, which rises above the presbytery. The same building currently incorporates two chapels, one above the other. Inside the lower church, an arch separates the naos from the bema, where the altar is housed in a rectangular niche, while the prothesis and diaconicon are located to the sides. The upper church is similar, although it ends in a central apse covered by a barrel vault connected to the cupola. The plan dates to the ninth-eleventh century. The Baptistery in Santa Severina (province of Crotone), variously dated to the eighth-ninth century and the seventh-ninth century, is centrally planned with cylindrical main body topped by an octagonal drum, surmounted by a blind lantern. A closed wing to the southwest and a shorter one to the southeast make it possible to hypothesise an original Greek cross plan. A circle of eight columns support a gored dome, enclosed within the drum, which is also octagonal. The columns are connected to the outer wall by monolithic brackets. Fragments of frescoes can still be seen on the outer walls.