Still on our walk around Ortigia. We visited Siricusa's cathedral in 2011, and were knocked out by this Baroque cathedral plopped down undisguisedly on a 5th century BC Doric temple. It is amazing, and we have seen very few things to compare. Maybe the Mezquita, in its way. Usually, triumphant religions/regimes destroy all traces of predecessors and competitors. Not this time. It's one of those things that warrants revisiting. And I hope to see it again.
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Exterior, approaching the Piazza Minerva; the Doric columns
are plainly visible |
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| Piazza Minerva |
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| Facade of the cathedral |
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West entry; OK, these columns are not Doric; but on the
other side... |
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| Nave: what was the cella of the Doric temple |
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| On the south aisle, huge, fluted Doric columns |
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West end: the Christians simply turned things around, making
the head of the Greek temple now the end, the cella the nave,
adding an apse at the entry to the Greek temple; and bricking
the whole thing up... |
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| South aisle |
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| Font said to be part of the original temple |
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Back out on the piazza, heading for the next church and Caravaggio's
Deposition of St. Lucia |
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