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Visit San Giuseppe Jato
While the highlight at San Giuseppe Jato is undoubtedly its archaeological park (below), there are also some religious buildings of great historical and artistic interest.
Mother Church of San Giuseppe Jato
Among the many churches, visit first the 'Mother Church', dedicated to the Holy Redeemer St. Nicholas of Bari and built in 1792 when Prince Beccadelli laid the cornerstone. A landslide in 1838 compromised the structure of the church, which was rebuilt and designed by Achille Viola in 1848. Located along the “Corso Umberto I” , it is dedicated to the cult of St. Joseph (until 1784 the patron saint of St. Joseph of Mortilli).
the church is a basilica with three naves and a transept topped by a dome, and predominantly in the Neo-classical style. The nave contains three paintings by Francesco Padovano (1842-1915), the "Annunciation of Mary", "Nativity", and "Presentation in the Temple." In the vault of the presbytery are some paintings by Giuseppe Carta from Palermo (1809-1889) , depicting the Coronation of Mary, and on the right The Magdalene and the Samaritan woman. On the altar there is a crucifix of Neoclassical style, attributed to Girolamo Bagnasco (1759-1832). The main Chapel nave is dedicated to St. Joseph, and it keeps a wooden statue by Bagnasco.
Archaeology Park of San Giuseppe Jato
Three kilometers from the village you can visit the archaeological zone of Mount Jato, with the remains of the ancient "Ietas". The oldest finds of Monte Jato are fragments of hand-made painted ceramic decorated with engraving. Decorations and similar forms are found in eastern and central Sicily from 1000 BC. The pottery has geometric designs, decorative ribbons, diamonds and concentric circles. These vessels are no longer made by hand, but on the lathe, a tool which is also inherited from Greece.
The oldest strata of the settlement of Mount Jato have so far been found intact in only a few places. The theater was built in the 4thcentury BC on the model of the Athenian Greek theater of Dionysus. The theater of “Ietas” is about 70 meters long and it could hold about 4000 spectators. The thirty-five tiers of seats were separated by two semi-circular corridors (ambulatories). The three lower tiers with backrests (“proedria”) were occupied by the magistrates and priests, separated from the rest of the audience. The orchestra sat in the centre of the hemicycle. Access was by two side corridors (“parodoi”) that separated the orchestra from the stage, still partly visible. From here we have four statues - two satyrs and two maenads - found in 1973 and which are kept inside the local museum.
The Temple of Aphrodite was built around 550 BC and it is the city's oldest public work. Designed by a Greek architect and built with Greek techniques, it belongs to the type of temples called “oikos”, that is “the house of the deity”. It is preserved only in part, but we can see the “adyton”, a separate room reserved for the cult and special sacred ceremonies. The finding near the temple of a vessel used during the ceremonies with the three letters engraved above 'AFR' has led to the idea that the sacred edifice was dedicated to Aphrodite, goddess of beauty and love; the so-called Greek temple of Aphrodite presumably dates back to the sixth century BC.
The main square of the Greek city, the so-called "Agora", was the site of meetings and represented the political, social and business place of the polis. It consists of an open area of 50 X 40 feet, paved with slabs of sandstone arcades; it had two colonnades to the north and east, and housed the “bouleuterion”, which is the semicircular hall where the council of citizens held their meetings.
The “Bouleuterion” was built in Roman times, in the west of the Agora. The peristyle house is certainly one of the most interesting archaeological finds of the ancient city. The noble dwelling, called the peristyle house because it is built around two colonnades courtyards, represents one of the largest and oldest houses known in the Greek-Hellenistic world. Built with stone walls around 300 BC it was the residence of a noble local citizen. It consisted of twenty-five rooms, divided into two different plans. The banquet halls had the capacity to accommodate 72 people, comfortably stretched out on couches. The baths are also well preserved - built in the mid-second century BC it consists of a hall, a spa and a sink (all heated by a tube system that allowed people to wash with hot water ). According to Isler, the peristyle house showed, after the excavations of 1988-89, a total of 25 rooms, and a top floor which was reached by stairs.
In one of the rooms there is a tessellated mosaic of rosettes with three petals. The mosaic is among the oldest of Sicily, and it is contemporary to the construction of the house, which is itself contemporary to the urban plan of Iaitas, dating back to 300 BC.
The medieval ruins date from the last decades of the life of “Giato”, when the city, before and during the great insurrection against the emperor Frederick II of Swabia, become the last refuge of the Muslims. The houses, erected with stones taken from the ancient walls, are rather poorly constructed. The finds from the ruins of these houses are scarce.
Cuisine of Iato / San Giuseppe Jato
Finally worthy of our interest is the ancient cuisine of Iato, symbol of the independence of the city by the Greeks. The main courses consist of soup with vegetables and legumes and pasta topped with tomato sauce, according to ancient custom; then we have home-made pasta seasoned with "astrattu", (concentrated sun-dried tomatoes). Another typical dish is the "pasta with sardines" and the fennel in the mountains.
The main courses are meat, fish, vegetables, eggs. Typical dishes include "u braciuluni ", which consists of a large bundle containing meat boiled egg, bacon, peeled tomatoes, cheese, and then there's the “carni di crastu cu l'ammogghiu” which consists of roast sheep on which is coated with sprigs of mint or oregano, oil-based sauce, thyme, garlic, salt and pepper. Finally, we recall the salads, with tomatoes, onions, vegetables, seasoned with oregano and olives, or the salad of oranges.
See also San Giuseppe Jato history and etymology.
See the the Sicily travel guide for more places to visit in the same region as San Giuseppe Jato.