Underground Path of Piazza del Duomo, Syracuse

The hypogeum of Piazza Duomo is an underground path that connects east-west the Piazza del Duomo to the walls of the Marina. It consists of a main gallery, from which some 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 an essential role not only for the water supply of the Archbishop’s Palace but for the entire Ortigia. Along the route, 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 nucleus of galleries is linked to the presence of a previous quarry located in Piazza Duomo and remembered in the 18th century because stone for the construction of the Cathedral façade was taken from it. The access point was identified in 1869 during the execution of public works “almost opposite the entrance door of the Archbishop’s Palace, but which faced somewhat towards the Monastery of St. Lucia: a large pulley was installed there, and masters lifted stone through it that was of the same nature as that of the columns…” War events related to the Second World War brought attention back to the underground rooms identified in the previous century. In view of Italy’s entry into the war, the Citizen Committee of U.M.P.A. (Military Union for Anti-Aircraft Protection) prepared gathering points for the civilian population in case of an attack. To prepare the air-raid shelter in Piazza Duomo, teams of “pirriatori” were called to enlarge the ancient quarry, dig a room where to keep in zinc boxes the simulacrum of Saint Lucia, hidden since December 1942 along with the treasure, and prepare the accesses for the population located in the retaining wall of the archiepiscopal garden with an additional entrance to the galleries in the ancient Marina walls. Thus, an underground route was created connecting the Piazza del Duomo to the Marina, linked, through a secondary gallery running north-south, to the cistern. After the war ended, the shelters were decommissioned. Linked to memories now handed down to History, the air-raid shelter of Piazza del Duomo – like every testimony, architectural or of other kind, that composes the millenary urban history of Ortigia – presents itself as a unique complex, the final outcome of the anthropic stratification of the site, which gathers in its components – of which the cistern is the chronologically oldest element – contributions linked to different phases of the city’s history.