From the Latin arŭla, a diminutive of ara, the word arula indicates a small altar usually made of terracotta. ...

The Eleusinian Mysteries were a feast in the Athenian religious calendar. Their diffusion during the imperial period testifies to the great influence that the culture of Ancient Greece had on Roman culture. The fasting, rituals, hymns and sacrifices that took place during these events were all i...

The cult of Demeter and Persephone is documented in Agrigento since the times of the ancient Greek colony by a monumental sacred area in the western part of the Hill of the Temples and divided into three separate terraces. The sanctuary was located in an area near Porta V, where numerous deposits w...

From the Greek προπύλαια, in classical architecture the propylaea indicates the portico in front of the gates of a temple, square, palace or city....

The sculptural decoration of the Hellenistic-Roman Sanctuary porticoes was represented by statues, elegantly dressed in togas, alternating with the columns. Only four of them are preserved, all headless, so it is not possible to identify who they depicted. From the refined clothing and prominent po...

Doric columns are distinguished from those of the other two orders (Ionic and Corinthian) by the absence of the supporting base, and by the shaft which has a bulge (entasis) at one third of its height. The function of the entasis is to correct the shrinking optical illusion created by a row of perf...

Founded in 580 BC by Rhodium-Cretan settlers from Gela, in less than a century Agrigento became a power known throughout the Mediterranean for its flourishing arts and sciences. The Doric temples that its inhabitants built still stand proudly on the southern slope of the hill. They were built usin...

While in the Republican era tragedies and comedies were the most common performances in the theatres of Rome, Pliny the Younger wrote that during the imperial period, with the advent of the masses, who were uneducated and not prepared to appreciate the dramatic art, they gave way to the “cheapest�...

Vitruvius, in his work De Architectura, argued that the most suitable places to build theatres were “consonant”, i.e. places where the voice, from below, increases in volume as it rises upwards, supported by the shapes of the structure. When this was not enough, however, there were some tricks t...

The Puppet Theater was the first Italian Intangible Heritage to be included in the WHL. It is a type of puppet theater whose protagonists Charlemagne and his paladins, which spread in Sicily since the eighteenth century, arrived at its peak in mid-1800. Antiquarium Casa Pace, within walking distanc...