The top element of the column, the capital, can be one of three types belonging to the respective architectural orders: Doric, Ionic or Corinthian. An Ionic capital has two volutes, whose centre, which may have various types of decoration, is called the "eye". It takes its name from the Ionians, a ...

The town hall of Scicli, located in the historic centre of the Baroque town, is the main setting for the famous television series "Inspector Montalbano". In the story based on novels by Andrea Camilleri, the town hall takes the name of the Vigàta Commissariat....

Elio Vittorini, one of the greatest writers of the 20th century, was born in Syracuse in 1908. His last work "Le città del mondo" (The Cities of the World) from 1952-55, a novel that unfortunately remained unfinished, describes Scicli: "The town of Scicli stands at the crossroads of three valley...

The county was founded on 25 March 1296 when Frederick III of Sicily gifted it to Manfredi Chiaramonte for the courage he showed in the war against the Angevins and King James. It was a vast territory that included the city of Modica, Ragusa, Scicli, Vittoria, Monterosso, Pozzallo, Chiaramonte, Alca...

The centre of the apse was once illuminated by a spectacular glass chandelier made by the famous glassblowers of Murano. The chandelier was destroyed during its first journey to the church. The boat carrying it crashed into the rocks and sank together with the 600 kilograms of chandelier glass....

Pietra pece is a particular type of rock used in the architectural context of the Hyblaean Baroque, mainly as a building material in the construction of palaces and churches. Also called pietra-oro (gold-stone), pietra pece is a chalky sedimentary rock that dates back to the Cenozoic Era. Its black...

An intrados is the surface visible inside the vault. More generally, it indicates the underside of the depth of a structure. It is also called an "imbotto" or "ventre"....

Pilaster strips are vertical pillars leaning against the wall, which do not have a structural function, merely a decorative one. They have capitals and bases. Rustication, on the other hand, is an ornamental finish usually composed of ashlars, or blocks of stone....

A polyptych is the form of some works of art, mainly sacred, obtained by aggregating several boards or separate individual panels that are assembled and enclosed in a frame in order to obtain an architectural structure. In fact, the word comes from the Greek poli- meaning "many" + ptychē meaning ...

The top element of the column, the capital, can be one of three types belonging to the respective architectural orders: Doric, Ionic or Corinthian. The Corinthian capital is composed of an upturned truncated cone, called a kalathos, featuring two overlapping rows of eight acanthus leaves, an orien...