A watercolour on paper, painted in 1867 by the artist Francesco Paolo Priolo and kept in the Museum of Palazzo Bellomo, depicts a curious event: in the year 61 AD, during a stop on his way to Rome, the apostle Paul was said to have spoken to the Syracusans at the Latomie. In the work you can see th...

Calcarenite is a type of rock formed by the sedimentation of layers of limestone and is very common in Sicily. The Agrigento calcarenite is very porous, soft and crumbly, but useful for to its resistance to weather (rain and wind). The ease with which it was cut, worked and sculpted made it very...

In his monumental work, the Bibliotheca historica (Historical Library), the Sicilian historian Diodorus Siculus wrote that the tyrant Dionysius, on account of his poetic inclinations, would invite experts to his court to comment on his compositions. When questioned, the poet Philoxenus admitted wit...

Marcian was born in Antiochia around the 1st century and was a martyred bishop, venerated as a saint by the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church. According to local legend, Marcian was the first bishop of Syracuse, where he was sent by St. Peter to preach the Gospel and found the Christian commu...

The Tempio dei Dioscuri (Temple of Castor and Pollux) was located in the second terrace of the Sanctuary of the Chthonic Deities. It was built in Doric style in the 5th century BC as requested by the tyrant Theron, but over the years neglect and adverse weather have reduced it to a pile of rubble. ...

The Sicilian poet Salvatore Quasimodo spent many of his days walking along the steep paths of Pantalica. In fact, the nature and colours of this place inspired his poetry, like the poem Albero (Tree, translation by Jack Bevan): "From you a shadow melts\making mine seem dead\though with its motion i...

Publius Vergilius Maro, commonly known as Virgil, was a Latin poet and writer. He was born near Mantua in 70 BC and died in Brindisi in 19 BC. He is known for his literary works the Bucolics and the Georgics, but mainly for the Aeneid, which recounts the origins of Rome. The third book of the Oper...

Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor belonged to the Suevian noble Hohenstaufen family and was the last ruler of this dynasty to reign in Sicily. He descended on his mother's side from the Normans of Hauteville, conquerors of Sicily and founders of the Kingdom of Sicily. Known as the stupor mundi ("the...

For Asclepius, many animals were sacred, and helped his priests and priestesses to heal the sick. The serpent was the most important since small doses of its venom could be used as a drug. Then there were dogs and geese, because their saliva helped to heal wounds. Finally, the rooster: the animal...

Plato was an Athenian philosopher who lived between the 5th and 4th centuries BC. He mainly wrote dialogues that delved further into Socrates' philosophy and developed a philosophical concept based on the relationship between "things" belonging to a physical reality and "ideas", conceptual models ...