Syracuse in the Middle ages

Archeological itinerary

Medieval quarters of Ortygia

Maniace Castle

The original building of the Castello Maniace is due to the emperor Frederick II, who commissioned the realization to the architect Riccardo da Lentini between 1232 and 1239 shortly after returning from the crusade in the Holy land. The construction took place in the same amount of time that sprang up a few other castles of Frederick II "from Sicily and southern Italy .

Maniace Castle is located on the very tip of Ortigia, in control of the port and the city of Syracuse. It was built according to precise rules of rationality, geometry, symmetry. The building is square, enclosed by a mighty wall with four cylindrical towers at the corners. Outside was visible a great base shoe, which is then went underground. The name leads to the Byzantine General George Maniaces reconquered the city from the Arabs, in 1038.

Within the environment must have seemed like a single room with 16 free-standing columns, 4 columns and perimeter columns that supported 16 25 bays, covered by cross vaults . Four monumental chimneys mark the corners of the walls. The central span was interpreted as open air courtyard, with a central pool. The different structural nature of the columns of the Central Bay, formed by monolithic columns of granite put together, would give credence to the hypothesis that sprang after recent explorations, a central span blanket like the other but more emphasized

Castello Maniace

According to tradition, two bronze Rams were brought from Constantinople to Syracuse by the Byzantine Admiral George Maniaces and placed at the fortress he built in that city [1], but this tradition seems rather questionable when compared with winning strategies of Maniace in Sicily: another hypothesis aims that the Rams have been unearthed in occasional digs in the same town aretusea

Anonymus ( Lisyppo school?III century b.C.BronzePalermo Museo Salinas

Palazzo MontaltoThe building has a valuable 14th-century prospectus, with well carved dark stones. The arched door in the lower body also serves as a Base: in the second level, there are three large Windows with geometric and floral decorations, an ogival mullioned window, a three-light window and a Lancet window. Within each lunette are placed small rosettes, arched over the door, it's a pretty newsagent, decorated with various family crests.

Inside is an atrium with outdoor staircase, next to a Renaissance portico surmounted by a loggia

Palazzo Mergulese-Montalto was erected in 1397 by an unknown architect at the behest of the noblewoman Macciotta Mergulese. In the fifteenth century, Constance of Aragon gave it to the family Montalto. In 1837, was used as a hospital following the cholera and in 1854 received the religious community of the daughters of charity. The building, a perfect fusion of styles aragonese and Catalan, is one of the best examples of Chiaramonte Gothic, quite unusual in Syracuse, in buildings of that period

Above the door is a beautiful ogival newsstand, decorated with various family crests. A little below the coat of arms of Mergulese, surmounted by a large M and the Latin inscriptionHAEC MIRGULENSIS MAC / CIOTTA PALATIA STRUXIT / CUI SUARUM SUMMA VIRTUTUM / COPIA SURGIT / ANNO MILLENO TERCEN / TENO NONAGENO / SEPTENO MUNDO VERNO / VENIENTE SUPREMO

Palazzo Bellomo

The palazzo Bellomo is a 13th-14th century. The building has two distinct phases: the Swabian age, identifiable in all bastion of the ground floor and in the 15th century, and the Gothic portal, identifiable around the upper floor.

In 1365 the Palace became the property to Bellomo, Roman noble family came to Sicily with Frederick III of Aragon. In this period was carried on the raising of the Palace that has clear influences of Catalan art from the 15th century. In 1722 the nuns of the nearby monastery of San Benedetto bought it and used it as a warehouse a dormitory.

In 1948 it was turned into a Museum and it contains medieval and modern art collection.

The Annunciation by Antonello da Messina( 1474)

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In the island of Ortigia survive the remains of what is considered a mikvé (or mikveh), a ritual purification bath, right in the area of Giudecca (the city's Jewish quarter until 1493) in the basement of a patrician building which now houses a hotel. The mikveh was used most often by women, especially following menstruation or childbirth but also brides just before marriage. Men sometimes bathed in it to achieve purity following intimate relations with their wives, and bridegrooms bathed just before marriage. Immersion was part of the rite of conversion to Judaism by Gentiles (in this way Baptism is very similar to tevileh), and priests bathed during consecration and in preparation for performing certain rites. Bathing in a mikveh was required after contact with a corpse. The purpose of immersion in the mikveh was not physical cleansing - one must be clean before entering - but achieving spiritual purity or renewal.

Church Of St. John the Baptist (1380), the site of the Synagogue

Established after the Sicilian Vespers and the expulsion of the Angevins from Sicilythe Camera Reginale constituted a sort of "State within a State" and consisted of the fief of a group of cities whose annuities served as personal assets of the Queens of the Kingdom of Sicily and Naples. It was a sort of endowment given to the bride by the groom himself, and passed by regina in regina.The Camera Reginale constituted a proper dowry given by Frederick III of Aragon, King of Sicily, his wife Eleanor of Naples as a wedding gift in 1302.The presence of a court favored the revival of a political class-local bureaucratic, and gave the city an elegant Gothic style, here comes with local characters owe much to the Gothic Catalan (less linked to the presence of the pointed arch, less led to momentum in height, much more sober and fonder of closed surfaces and smooth than they are the results of the International Gothic , especially the "Flaming").

• Decay caused by suppression of the Regional Chamber would have curbed the further development, while maintaining a fundamentally Gothic and Renaissance aspect to the town, until the earthquake intervened in the Baroque period would force him to rebuild much of Syracuse in dominant style at the time of the quake.

In 1517, Charles V ascended to the throne after the death of his wife Germana (1538), suppressed the Camera Reginale

The Lanza palace is located southwest of the Archimede square, is a palace built in the late Renaissance dating back to 1300, 1400, however, that Catalan and remaking respectively dating back to 1500-1600. It presents a rather understated façade features a simple rectangular portal and mullioned Windows (some of which conspicuously ruined)

Inside there is a fine Gothic-Catalan courtyard.

Via Amalfitania. A medieval road that testifies trades between Syracuse and the seafaring town of

Amalfi during the Middle ages.

Palazzo AbelaBuilt in the 14th century and restructured in the 18th century.

The prospect has two portals, one smaller arches, and the other arches. The façade has also pointed and narrow slits of mullioned Windows

Chiesa di S. Giovanni alle CatacombeThe South façade of the Church which can be seen, destroyed by an earthquake in 1693 (he ruined the Great Basilica), and rebuilt in ' 700 with significant changes to the same façade and the portico whose reconstruction were used elements; On the left you notice the old Norman façade marked by ornate portal and rose window

For a long time in this church was recognized an ancient Cathedral of Syracuse, built in Acradina, extra moenia, in the region of the catacombs, in the place where, according to tradition, was buried the first bishop of Syracuse, san Marciano, martyred under Gallienus and Valerianus (mid 3rd century); recent studies, however, have dented this hypothesis.

Dating back to the Norman period, is mistakenly held Interior remains, due to the many Byzantine traits from the bare material. The portal, aragonese age is made of limestone with a deep splay widely modulated by beams and columns with elegant capitals with floral motifs. The Lunette is blind, while in the stone face you notice a large block of limestone on which is engraved in Gothic letters the monogram of Christ; below this, in a big block of marble you notice the coat of arms of the House of Aragon and date 1388

Chiesa di San Martino

Chiesa di S. Lucia extra moenia

Other interventions were made during the ' 600, maybe by Giovanni Vermexio, who built shortly after the nearby church of the Holy Sepulchre (1629), while not resulting in some documentation

The Church is documented since 1100, it is probably located in the same place where there was a Byzantine basilica destroyed by the Arabs. Of the Norman Basilica plan with apses, preserve the façade, the bricked fractional portal with characteristic capitals and the first two orders of the Bell Tower. Subsequent rearrangements have changed the appearance beginning in the 14th century, period in which it traced the rose window on the façade..