Piazza del Duomo and the mysterious black lines in Ortigia
A “sunny countryside”, Elio Vittorini defined the square of the Cathedral of Syracuse, one of the most beautiful baroque squares in Sicily, the central and highest point of Ortigia which overlooks, in addition to the Cathedral, the Palazzo Vermexio (town hall), the Archbishop’s Palace, the church of Santa Lucia alla Badia, several noble palaces (Beneventano del Bosco, Arezzo della Targia, Bonanno-Toscano, Borgia del Casale) and the palace of the Superintendence of Cultural Heritage.
The current structure of Piazza del Duomo dates back to the reconstruction of Siracusa after the great earthquake of 1693 and the two different souls of the city, Greek and Baroque, coexist there. Nevertheless, the excavation campaigns carried out at the beginning of the 20th century brought to light the signs of a settlement prior to the Greek colonization (734 BC).
Walking through the square you can see black lines in molten lead on the limestone slabs of the paving. They reflect the exact location of the monuments found during the other excavation operations conducted in the 90s. The line that runs parallel to the Archiepiscopal Palace indicates the stretch of a road dating back to the Greek era, one of the main axes of the urban layout of which Ortigia was already provided at that time.
From the staircase of the Duomo you can see other lines that form two rectangles, one inside the other. The smaller one follows the perimeter of the oikos, the oldest sacred building in Ortigia, with the construction of which the religious and political birth of the city is sanctioned (8th century BC). The oikos was later incorporated into another temple of which only the foundations remain (second half of the seventh century. BC).
In the adjacent Piazza Minerva, the line that runs along the Vermexio Palace marks the position of the ancient Ionic temple (Artemision)
