1. Church of Saint John Evangelist.

The church is located in Via Mormino Penna, which has been declared a UNESCO “World Heritage Site” (Fig. a).
The church and adjoining convent were built in 1651 by cloistered Benedictine nuns. The great earthquake of 1693 caused its collapse, followed by its reconstruction. Due to the eversive laws of the Kingdom of Italy (1866-1867), the State confiscated the complex. The convent was given to the Municipality of Scicli, which demolished it in the early 20th century to build the current Town Hall.
The project to rebuild the complex was entrusted to the friar Alberto Maria di San Giovanni Battista, who was advised by “the Val Di Noto engineer” Vincenzo Sinatra, a pupil of Gagliardi.
The façade has the typical bell tower façade of many late-Baroque churches, with three orders and a triple part (Fig. b). The first order has a convex-concave pattern which creates a distinctive chiaroscuro effect. In the middle part is the entrance, reached by a flight of steps, set between a pair of twin columns that, together with the side columns, support a wide trabeation, bordered at the top by a wrought-iron grilles. In the second order, there is a large window placed between decorated cornices at the entrance. The belfry represents the last order, with the largest central arch surmounted by a broken tympanum.
The interior, with an elliptical plan, as in the monastic tradition, is preceded by an atrium, where an organ (Fig. c) is located and concludes with a semicircular apse with a basin-shaped vault (Fig. d).
The vault of the nave, richly stuccoed and painted (Fig. e), is supported by a sumptuous trabeation resting on fluted columns with Corinthian capitals.
Inside the sacristy is a 17th-century painting depicting a crucified Jesus wearing a tunic rather than a loincloth, as classical iconography would have it (Fig. f). This depiction was inspired by the wooden crucifix, with a tunic, in Burgos Cathedral in Spain.