CHURCH OF ST. JOSEPH (SAN GIUSEPPE) IN TAORMINA

The church of San Giuseppe in Taormina was built in in the Baroque style between the late 1600s and the early 1700s.

This church, dedicated to St. Joseph, is located next to the Clock Tower and faces out onto Piazza IX Aprile. A double staircase, with a balustrade of Syracuse stone, leads up to the entrance.

The gable façade in the baroque style, has a large central portal that leads into the church, and two small side portals, of which the right places in the sacristy and the left one leads to a recreation room that is often used for exhibitions of painting.

The monumental main portal is made with marbles of Taormina from different varieties, jambs and architrave in white, grey and pink in the other decorative pieces.

On the right side of the church stands the great bell tower, the lower part of which is made from large blocks of Taormina stone.

The interior, decorated with stucco work of the eighteenth century reproducing floral motifs and heads of winged angels, has a single nave with a transept that has at its center a dome where you can admire a fresco depicting St. John Bosco child between Madonna and Jesus.

The main altar of the church is made with Taormina marble. Under the tabernacle there is inlaid the Madonna rises above the souls in Purgatory.

Behind the altar, in a niche of the apse there is the statue of Maria Ausiliatrice.

Above the main altar, on the right, there is in a niche the statue of St. John Bosco with two boys, while to the left  there is a statue of St. Joseph.

Beside the altar of St. Joseph  there is another niche which houses the wood and glass urn with the statue of the Dead Christ, which is carried in  procession on Good Friday.

The pulpit is located at the base of the arch before the main altar. Next to the pulpit there is a small marble statue of Saint Dominic Savio, the saint of mothers and cradles, which holds a chart in the left hand with the words: "Death rather than sin - Domenico Savio 1857", while in the right hand he is holding a crucifix on his chest.

In the sacristy of the church is remarkable a Taormina pink marble fountain  placed in a niche surrounded by a round arch; at the top of the arc there is depicted the Virgin Mary with the souls in the flames of Purgatory at her feet, which is identical to that shown on the front of the main altar.