Best Doric/Baroque Temple/Duomo So Far

Although Ortigia is nice enough in itself, our real goal was to see its Duomo, a Baroque cathedral built right on top of and unabashedly incorporating the foundations and columns of a 5th century BCE Doric Temple of Athena. It was pretty incredible.

North side of the building, note the inset Doric column, then

note the 10 or 12 more capitals along the top of the stone



Entrance and facade; pretty Baroque



Column hugger; inside, the massive 2500

year old columns are pretty conspicuous and
are still holding the thing up; one sees
religious buildings built over others all over
the more contested parts of Europe--the few
Roman temples that have survived in Rome
have done so because, like this Duomo, they
were "converted" to Christian use; but there
is nothing else of this age, intactness, and
continuing function



E.g.

Back to the Baroque

Doric columns at the head of what was the

cella



More columns

Looking off into one of the Baroque side

chapels

Ceiling of another

Play of light on the porch

Bonus: right down the Duomo Square, which

is significant for other architectural reasons,

is the Church of Santa Lucia (patron saint of

Sircusa), in which resides a moderately

famous Caravaggio, namely, his Santa Lucia,

which he painted while on the lam between

his flight from Malta and return to Italy 

The Church has a no pix policy, and while the

guard was enforcing this with a group of

college-age tourists, I snapped what is truly a

Parthian Shot as I was walking out the door;

evidently, this is not one of the paintings on

which Caravaggio's reputation stands, being

largely a butt-shot of one of the grave

diggers...