Hypogeum Path of Piazza del Duomo, Syracuse

The hypogeum of Piazza Duomo is an underground path that connects east-west from Piazza del Duomo to the walls of the Marina. It consists of a main gallery from which several smaller galleries branch off, one of which reconnects to the large cistern of the Archbishop’s Palace. Built by Bishop Paolo Faraone (1619-1629), the cistern played a crucial role not only for the water supply of the Archbishop’s Palace but for the entire Ortigia. Along the path, it is possible to see the remains of other wells or ancient cisterns, intercepted and destroyed during the excavation works of the galleries.

A first cluster of galleries is linked to the presence of a previous quarry located in Piazza Duomo and remembered in the 18th century because the stone for the construction of the Cathedral’s facade was quarried from it. The access point was identified in 1869 during public works “almost opposite the entrance door of the Archbishop’s Palace, but leaning somewhat towards the part of the Monastery of St. Lucia: a large pulley was installed there, and through it the masters lifted stone of the same nature as that of the columns…” The war events related to the Second World War brought renewed attention to the underground spaces identified in the previous century. In view of Italy entering the war, the Citizen Committee of the U.M.P.A. (Military Union for Anti-Aircraft Protection) prepared gathering points for the civilian population in case of attack. To prepare the air-raid shelter in Piazza Duomo, teams of “pirriatori” were called in to expand the ancient quarry, excavate a room to store the simulacrum of Saint Lucia in zinc crates — hidden since December 1942 along with the treasure — and set up entrances for the population located in the retaining wall of the archiepiscopal garden, with an additional entrance to the galleries in the ancient Marina wall. Thus, an underground path was created connecting Piazza del Duomo to the Marina, linked, through a secondary north-south gallery, to the cistern. After the war ended, the shelters were decommissioned. Connected to memories now consigned to History, the air-raid shelter of Piazza del Duomo — like every testimony, architectural or otherwise, composing Ortigia’s millennia-old urban history — stands as a unique complex, the final outcome of the anthropic stratification of the site, which gathers components — with the cistern being the chronologically oldest element — related to different phases of the city’s history.