Church of San Giovanni Battista (Gubbio)

The Church of St. John the Baptist is a beautiful and welcoming church located in the Piazza San Giovanni of the same name. It is definitely worth a visit, not least because it became very famous through the cinema and television, as it was the fictional parish of Don Matteo. Terence Hill played the priest “Don Matteo” in the small Italian town of Gubbio. Don Matteo is friends with the carabiniere Antonino Cecchini. He receives regular information about current criminal cases that are being handled by the Gubbio carabinieri. To the displeasure of the carabinieri, Don Matteo always solves the criminal cases a little faster than the carabinieri themselves.

The church was built between the 13th and 14th centuries, in all likelihood on the site where the first Cathedral of San Mariano previously stood. The church has a purely Gothic façade while the bell tower is Romanesque. The interior consists of a single nave with a square apse, while the roof is supported by stone arches on paired columns. Many of the original frescoes have been lost; Few fragments survive of a Saint Catherine of Alexandria and a Mystical Marriage of Saint Catherine.

Saint John the Baptist (San GIOVANNI BATTISTA), to whom this church in Gubbio was dedicated, is - like Saint Joseph - a man on the threshold from the Old to the New Testament. His parents are Zacharias and Elisabeth. After the announcement of God's incarnation, the Mother of God visits her relative Elisabeth, who will give birth to a son in her old age, John the Baptist. He is half a year older than Jesus and is considered his forerunner/pioneer. He lives in the desert, preaches repentance from sins to the Jewish population and baptizes them in the Jordan. Jesus also comes there to be baptized, and is filled with the Holy Spirit who descends on him from heaven.
The feast day of San Giovanni Battista in the saints' calendar is on June 24th, exactly half a year before 'Holy Eve'.