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Home , 450 BC, Agrigento, Belice, Cella, Doric Greek, Doric order

Greek Art in Greek ancient temples in Sicily Temple plans

1. Tympanum, 2. Acroterium, 3. Sima 4. 5. Mutules 7. Freize 8. 9. 10. Regula 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. Echinus 17. 18. 19. Stylobate

Ionic order: 1 - , 2 - column, 3 - cornice, 4 - , 5 - architrave or epistyle, 6 - capital (composed of abacus and volutes), 7 - shaft, 8 - base, 9 - stylobate, 10 - krepis. Corinthian order Valley of the Temples

• The is an archaeological site in ( Akragas), Sicily, southern . It is one of the most outstanding examples of Greater art and architecture, and is one of the main attractions of Sicily as well as a national momument of Italy. The area was included in the UNESCO Heritage Site list in 1997. Much of the excavation and restoration of the temples was due to the efforts of archaeologist Domenico Antonio Lo Faso Pietrasanta (1783– 1863), who was the Duke of from 1809 through 1812.

• The Valley includes remains of seven temples, all in Doric style. The temples are: • Temple of , built in the 5th century BC and burnt in 406 BC by the Carthaginians. It was usually used for the celebration of weddings. • Temple of , whose name comes from a inscription found nearby, and which was also built in the 5th century BC. Turned into a church in the 6th century AD, it is now one of the best preserved in the Valley. • Temple of , who was one of the most venerated deities in the ancient Akragas. It is the most ancient in the Valley: destroyed by an earthquake, it consists today of only eight . • Temple of Olympian , built in 480 BC to celebrate the city-state' victory over . It is characterized by the use of large scale atlases. • Temple of . Despite its remains including only four columns, it is now the symbol of modern Agrigento. • Temple of , also dating from the 5th century BC. It is thought to have been one of the most imposing constructions in the valley; it is now however one of the most eroded. • Temple of , located far from the ancient town's walls; it was the goal of pilgrims seeking cures for illness. • The Valley is also home to the so-called Tomb of Theron, a large tuffmonument of pyramidal shape; scholars suppose it was built to commemorate the Romans killed in the .

Agrigento Temple of Concord Temple plan • Due to its good state of preservation, the Temple of Concordia is ranked amongst the most notable edifices of the Greek civilization existing today. It has a peristatis of 6 x 13 columns built over a basement of 39.44 x 16.91 m; each Doric column has twenty grooves and a slight , and is surmounted by an architrave with and ; also perfectly preserved are the tympani. The , preceded by a pronaos, is accessed by a single step. The exterior and the interior of the temple were covered by polychrome stucco. The upper frame had gutters with lion-like protomes, while the roof was covered by marble tiles. • When the temple was turned into a church the entrance was moved to the rear, and the rear wall of the cella was destroyed. The spaces between the columns were closed, while 12 arched openings were created in the cella, in order to obtain a structure with one nave and two aisles. The pagan altar was destroyed and sacristies were carved out in the eastern corners. The sepultures visible inside and outside the temple date to the High Middle Age.

Agrigento Temple of Lacinia • This temple dates to c. 450 BC, measuring 38.15 x 16.90 m: it is in Doric style, peripteros 6 columns wide by 13 long, preceded by a pronaos and . The basement has four steps. • Current remains consist of the front with parts of the architrave and of the frieze. Only fragments of the other three sides survive, with few elements of the cella.

Agrigento Temple of Zeus Olimpico

• Segesta was one of the major cities of the Elymian people. It is located in the northwestern part of Sicily in Italy, near the modern of Calatafimi-Segesta in the province of .

Segesta Segesta Temple Plan Segesta Temple in Thomas Cole´s picture from 1843

• On a hill just outside the site of the ancient city of Segesta lies an unusually well preserved Doric temple. It was built sometime in the late 5th century BC and has six by fourteen columns on a base measuring 21 by 56 meters, on a platform three steps high. Several things suggest that the temple was never actually finished. The columns have not been fluted as they normally would have been in a Doric temple and there are still tabs present in the blocks of the base (used for lifting the blocks into place but then normally removed). It also lacks a cella and was never roofed over. The temple is also unusual for being a Hellenic temple in a city not mainly populated by .

Selinunte

• was one of the most important of the Greek colonies on the southern coast of Sicily in Italy. It was situated between the valleys of the and Modione rivers. It now lies in the comune . The archaeological site contains five temples centered on an . Of the five temples, only the Temple of Hera, also known as "", has been re-erected.

Selinunte: View of the Acropolis from the Selinunte Temple of (G) Selinunte - Temple of Hera, also called temple E Temple E, view from within

Selinunte Temple plan • Its current appearance is the result of (reconstruction using the original material) carried out –controversially – between 1956 and 1959. The is 25.33 x 67.82 metres with a 6 x 15 column pattern (each 10.19 metres high) with numerous traces of the stucco which originally covered it remaining. It is a temple characterised by multiple staircases creating a system of successive levels: ten steps lead to the entrance on the eastern side, after the pronaos in antis another six steps lead into the naos and finally another six steps lead into the at the rear of the naos. Behind the adyton, seoarated from it by a wall, was the opisthodomos in antis. A Doric frieze at the top of the walls of the naos consisted of metopes depicting people, with the heads and naked parts of the women made of Parian marble and the rest from local stone. Four metopes are preserved: Heracles killing the Amazon , the marriage of Hera and Zeus, being torn apart by ’ hunting dogs, killing the Enceladus, and another more fragmentary one perhaps depicting Apollo and . All of them are kept in the Museo Archeologico di . Temple E was dedicated to Hera as shown by the inscription on a votive stela but some scholars deduce that it must have been dedicated to on the basis of structural parallels.

Selinunte Siracusa

• The Cathedral of Syracuse is a monument of singular charm, and its extraordinary characteristics are virtually unequalled in Italy. The building was, in fact, made by closing the spaces between the columns of a temple of the 5th century BC, which in this way has survived virtually intact. The imposing Greek columns are still clearly visible both inside and outside the church. While keeping up with the times and changes of religion (Greek temple, church, mosque, and then a church again), the site has remained a place of worship for a good two and a half millennia!

• The charm of this construction of a modern place of worship upon a much more ancient one is heightened by the fact that some of the columns "trapped" within the walls have been tilted and twisted by earthquakes that the cathedral has endured during its history. In these deformities one can see "frozen" in time the awesome force of nature that shook Syracuse in its ancient history.

Siracusa Temple of Athena The Doric columns of the Temple of Athena, "imprisoned" in the right nave of the Cathedral of Syracuse.

The nave of the Cathedral of Syracuse. The pillars were created by opening the walls of the internal cella ot the Temple of Athena.

Siracusa Temple of Apollo • The Temple of Apollo on the island of Ortygia in Siracusa, is a Greek temple dating from the 6th century BC. • This is the oldest known Doric temple in Western Europe. An inscription says that the temple honors Apollo, but after came to Syracuse, he wrote that the temple was dedicated to Artemis. • Regardless, the temple was eventually devoted to neither – it was turned into a Byzantine church and then the Muslims took over and converted it into a mosque. Later, under Norman rule, it was turned back into a church. • Today the building is in ruins, but its imposing size is still evident - 58 x 24 m or 190 x 70 ft. It occupies a large part of Piazza Pancali. The dedication inscription is on the top step of the base.

Greek theaters in Sicily Diagram of the Greek theater Iato Mountin Segesta Siracusa Eraclea Minoa Solunto : Selinunte’s Metope Selinunte’s Metope Artemide e Atteone, metope in the Temple E in Selinunte – Palermo, National Museum Agrigento: Temple of Zeus Olimpico Efebo Agrigento Venus in Morgantina

Motya Charioteer

The Charioteer is a very rare surviving example of an original Greek victor’s and represents the winner of a chariot race that took place some 2,500 years ago. He was found in 1979 amid excavations on the tiny island of Motya on the western tip of Sicily. Today this amazing sculpture is regarded as a national treasure by and thought by many to be one of the finest surviving examples of a classical sculpture anywhere in the world.

Dancing Satyr - Mozia ’s Nike • Naxos was founded in 734 B. C. and was the firts Greek colony in Sicily. The leader of the expedition was Teocle and populations of Calcide Eubea and of the island of Naxos partecipated in the founding of the city. • The Nike remembers the bond that unites to these two cities in Greece. The Nike, the work of sculptor Carmelo Mendola, was erected to commemorate the twinning solemny declared on 27 novembre 1965 between Giardini Naxos and Calcide Eubea. The statue was placed at the tip of Cape Schisò with an eye towards the sea that had led to these shores the ships of colonists from Greece. • This sculpture is inspired by the Nike of Samotracia that, in the Museum of the Louvre, depicts the messenger goddess of victory. A second copy of the statue was placed in 1980 in Calcide Eubea. The offspring of Naxos after the island of Naxos in the is evidenced by the discovery of a stone with an inscription inscribed with the characters of the alphabet in use on the Cycladic island in the seventh century. B. C.

Liceo Scientifico “Alessandro Volta” Caltanissetta

Presentazione multimediale realizzata dalla Prof.ssa Edvige Presti in occasione del progetto P.O.N. “Focus on Art” svoltosi nell’A.S. 2013/14