The Temple of Apollo ( grc-gre, Ἀπολλώνιον ''Apollonion'') is one of the most important

ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic pe ...

monuments on

Ortygia Ortygia (; it, Ortigia; grc-gre, Ὀρτυγία) is a small island which is the historical centre of the city of Syracuse, Sicily. The island, also known as the ''Città Vecchia'' (Old City), contains many historical landmarks. The name origi ...

, in front of the Piazza Pancali in

Syracuse Syracuse may refer to: Places Italy * Syracuse, Sicily, or spelled as ''Siracusa'' * Province of Syracuse United States *Syracuse, New York **East Syracuse, New York ** North Syracuse, New York * Syracuse, Indiana *Syracuse, Kansas *Syracuse, M ...

Sicily (man) it, Siciliana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Ethnicity , demographics1_footnotes = , demographi ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

History

Dating to the 6th century B.C., this temple is one of the most ancient

Doric Doric may refer to: * Doric, of or relating to the Dorians of ancient Greece ** Doric Greek, the dialects of the Dorians * Doric order, a style of ancient Greek architecture * Doric mode, a synonym of Dorian mode * Doric dialect (Scotland) * Doric ...

temples in

Sicily (man) it, Siciliana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Ethnicity , demographics1_footnotes = , demographi ...

, and among the first with the layout consisting of a

peripteros A peripteros (a peripteral building, grc-gre, περίπτερος) is a type of ancient Greek or Roman temple surrounded by a portico with columns. It is surrounded by a colonnade ('' pteron'') on all four sides of the ''cella'' (''naos''), crea ...

of stone columns. This layout became standard for Greek temples.Mertens 2006, pp. 104-109. The temple underwent several transformations: closed during the

persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire Persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire began during the reign of Constantine the Great (306–337) in the military colony of Aelia Capitolina ( Jerusalem), when he destroyed a pagan temple for the purpose of constructing a Christian chur ...

, it was a

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship * Chri ...

, from which period the front steps and traces of a central door are preserved, and then an Islamic mosque during the

Emirate of Sicily The Emirate of Sicily ( ar, إِمَارَة صِقِلِّيَة, ʾImārat Ṣiqilliya) was an Islamic kingdom that ruled the island of Sicily from 831 to 1091. Its capital was Palermo (Arabic: ''Balarm''), which during this period became ...

. After the Norman defeat of the Saracens, it was reconsecrated at the Church of the Saviour, which was then incorporated into a 16th-century

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

barracks and into private houses, though some architectural elements remained visible. For instance, in 1778,

Dominique Vivant Denon Dominique Vivant, Baron Denon (4 January 1747 – 27 April 1825) was a French artist, writer, diplomat, author, and archaeologist. Denon was a diplomat for France under Louis XV and Louis XVI. He was appointed as the first Director of the Louvre ...

described the temple:Dominique Vivant Denon, ''Voyage en Sicile'', 1788 These successive renovations severely damaged the building, which were rediscovered around 1890 inside the barracks and was brought to light in its entirety thanks to the efficient excavations of Paolo Orsi.

Description

The temple's

stylobate In classical Greek architecture, a stylobate ( el, στυλοβάτης) is the top step of the crepidoma, the stepped platform upon which colonnades of temple columns are placed (it is the floor of the temple). The platform was built on a level ...

measures 55.36 x 21.47 metres, with its very squat columns in a 6 x 17 arrangement. It represents the moment of transition in the Greek west between temples with a wooden structure and those built completely out of stone, with a

hexastyle A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls. This idea was widely used in ancient Greece and has influenced many cult ...

front and a continuous colonnade around the perimeter which surrounds the

pronaos A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls. This idea was widely used in ancient Greece and has influenced many cult ...

and a naos divided into three aisles by two internal colonnades of more slender columns, which supported a wooden roof, which is difficult to reconstruct. At the back of the naos was a closed space, typical of Sicelian temples, called an

adyton The adyton ( , 'innermost sanctuary, shrine', ) or (Latin) was a restricted area within the cella of a Greek or Roman temple. The ''adyton'' was frequently a small area at the farthest end of the cella from the entrance: at Delphi it measured j ...

. The construction of a building with forty-two monolithic columns, probably transported by sea, must have seemed incredible to its builders, as demonstrated by the unusual inscription on the top step on the eastern face dedicated to

Apollo Apollo, grc, Ἀπόλλωνος, Apóllōnos, label=genitive , ; , grc-dor, Ἀπέλλων, Apéllōn, ; grc, Ἀπείλων, Apeílōn, label=Arcadocypriot Greek, ; grc-aeo, Ἄπλουν, Áploun, la, Apollō, la, Apollinis, label= ...

, in which the builder (or the architect) celebrates the construction of the building with an emphasis on the pioneering character of the construction.Lippolis et al. 2007. The remains permit the reconstruction of the original appearance of the temple, which belongs to the proto-doric period and shows uncertainties in construction and style, such as the extreme closeness of the columns on the sides, the variation of the

intercolumniation In architecture, intercolumniation is the proportional spacing between columns in a colonnade, often expressed as a multiple of the column diameter as measured at the bottom of the shaft. In Classical, Renaissance, and Baroque architecture, i ...

, the lack of concern for the correspondence of the

triglyph Triglyph is an architectural term for the vertically channeled tablets of the Doric frieze in classical architecture, so called because of the angular channels in them. The rectangular recessed spaces between the triglyphs on a Doric frieze are ...

s with the columns and archaic aspects the very elongated floor plan. The

architrave In classical architecture, an architrave (; from it, architrave "chief beam", also called an epistyle; from Greek ἐπίστυλον ''epistylon'' "door frame") is the lintel or beam that rests on the capitals of columns. The term can a ...

was unusually high and lightened at the back by an L-shaped cross section. Some aspects are very experimental, such as the importance given to the eastern face with a double colonnade, wider separation of the central columns and more generally a pursuit of emphasis rather than proportional harmony. The pioneering building was a defining step in the emergence of the peripteral Doric temple in Sicily, representing a sort of local prototype which juxtaposed aspects developed in mainland

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders wi ...

with an unusual height which was imitated only in

Magna Graeca Magna Graecia (, ; , , grc, Μεγάλη Ἑλλάς, ', it, Magna Grecia) was the name given by the Romans to the coastal areas of Southern Italy in the present-day Italian regions of Calabria, Apulia, Basilicata, Campania and Sicily; these r ...

, as well as the presence of the adyton, which was probably the location of the sacred image and formed the centre of the whole building. Terracotta from the structure is preserved in the Museo Archeologico Regionale Paolo Orsi in Syracuse, along with fragments of the gutter and of the akroteria, and some roof tiles, probably among the first produced in Sicily.

Gallery

File:Ortigia,_tempio_di_apollo_09.JPG, Temple precinct with small church of San Paolo Apostolo in background File:Syrakus_BW_2012-10-06_13-52-32.JPG, Outer columns of the stylobate with cella wall behind File:Syrakus_BW_2012-10-06_13-54-15.JPG, Cella wall, window likely inserted when converted into church File:Temple of Apollo, 565 BC, Byzantine and Norman rebuildings, Syracuse, 121712.jpg, File:Tempio di apollo.jpg, File:0425 - Siracusa - Tempio di Apollo - Foto Giovanni Dall'Orto - 21-May-2008.jpg

Notes

Bibliography

* *Mertens, Dieter; Schutzenberger, Margareta. ''Città e monumenti dei Greci d'Occidente: dalla colonizzazione alla crisi di fine V secolo a.C.''. Roma L'Erma di Bretschneider, 2006. . *Lippolis, Enzo; Rocco, Giorgio; Livadiotti, Monica. ''Architettura greca : storia e monumenti del mondo della polis dalle origini al V secolo''. Milano B. Mondadori, 2007. . *Vecco, Marilena. ''L' evoluzione del concetto di patrimonio culturale'', Milano F. Angeli, 2007. .

External links

The Temple of Apollo
on galleriaRomana {{Archaeological sites in Sicily 6th-century BC religious buildings and structures