From the square it looks like a very fine Sicilian Baroque cathedral and nothing more.
That is a façade in both senses. Behind it stands a Doric temple to Athena, built in the fifth century BC, and the temple was never demolished. The Christians simply moved into it. The columns are still standing, inside the walls, holding the building up after two and a half thousand years.
It is two euros to go in and it is the most remarkable thing in Sicily. The wider planning is in my complete guide to Syracuse.
What actually happened here
The temple went up in the fifth century BC, after the Greek victory over Carthage at Himera, and it was a serious building: Doric, peripteral, the kind of thing that announced a city was rich.
In the seventh century AD it was converted to a Christian church. The conversion was not a rebuild. They walled up the gaps between the outer columns to make solid walls, and cut arches through the wall of the inner chamber to make a nave with aisles.
That is the whole trick, and it is why the temple survived when almost every other Greek temple in Sicily was quarried for its stone. It became useful.
The Arabs converted it to a mosque and stripped it. The Normans reconsecrated it in 1085. The 1693 earthquake brought the Norman façade down, and what replaced it is the theatrical Baroque front you see from the square, finished in the middle of the eighteenth century.
So the building is Greek, Byzantine, Arab, Norman and Baroque, in that order, and all five are visible if you know where to look.
The columns are the point
Go inside and turn to the left aisle.
The columns are there in the wall. Fluted, pale, weathered, visibly older and rougher than the smooth masonry filled in around them. They lean very slightly. You can see the join where fifth century BC limestone meets seventh century AD infill, and it is not subtle once you have noticed it.
There are twelve or so along each side. They are not decoration and they are not spolia dragged in from somewhere else. They are in their original positions, standing where they were put up, doing the job they were carved for.
Put your hand on one. It was cut while Athens was building the Parthenon.
Outside on the northern flank you can see the same columns from the street, half buried in the wall of the building, which is the clearest single view of what was done here.
What else is inside
It is a working cathedral and a fairly plain one after the columns, which is as it should be.
There is a font that may be a reused Greek krater on bronze lions. There are some good Baroque side chapels, one of them heavy with silver. The floor is worn.
The thing to do is not tick off contents. It is to stand in the nave and work out what you are standing in, which takes a minute and then rearranges itself.
Come back after dark
The square is the other half of this.
It is a long oval of pale limestone, entirely closed to traffic, with the cathedral on one flank and a run of Baroque palace façades opposite. In daylight it is bright to the point of glare. At night it is lit from below and the whole thing goes warm and theatrical, and the paving reflects.
The town uses it. From about seven until midnight there are families crossing it, children running the length of it, and people sitting on the steps doing nothing at all.
A Caravaggio hangs on the south side of this square, in Santa Lucia alla Badia: The Burial of Saint Lucy, painted here in 1608 while he was a fugitive, over four metres tall, mostly empty at the top and very dark at the bottom. Lucy is the city’s patron saint. Opening hours are irregular, so check locally.
Practical
Entry is about two euros. Tickets are usually valid across the day rather than for a fixed slot.
Dress: shoulders covered, as with any working church in Italy.
Time needed: twenty minutes for the building, longer if you sit.
Best light: late afternoon on the façade, and after dark for the square.
It is UNESCO listed as part of Syracuse and the rock necropolis of Pantalica.
Read the building from outside first
Walk around to the northern flank, on Via Minerva, before you go in.
From that street you can see the temple from the outside: a row of fluted Doric columns standing half buried in the wall of the cathedral, weathered pale and obviously older than everything around them. The masonry between them is the seventh century infill.
That view explains the building in about four seconds, and most visitors never take it because they arrive from the square and go straight in.
The rest of the square
The cathedral is one of four buildings worth a look on that oval.
Santa Lucia alla Badia, on the south side, holds the Caravaggio. The archbishop’s palace and the Palazzo Beneventano make up the run of façades opposite, all rebuilt after 1693 in the same pale stone, which is why the square reads as a single composition rather than an accumulation.
It was laid out over the ancient acropolis. You are standing on the highest point of the island.
When to go in
Late morning gets light through properly onto the columns in the left aisle, which is what you came for.
Avoid the hour either side of a service if you want to walk about freely, and note it is a working cathedral rather than a monument, so there will sometimes be one on.
The façade is best photographed in the late afternoon, and the square itself after dark.
Twenty minutes covers the building. Give it forty if you sit down, which is worth doing once.
Read also: Ortigia, the island old town, the best photo spots in Syracuse, and my complete guide to Syracuse.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Syracuse cathedral really built inside a Greek temple?
Yes, literally. The fifth century BC Doric temple to Athena was converted into a church in the seventh century AD by filling in the gaps between the outer columns and cutting arches through the inner wall. The original columns still stand in their first positions, visible inside the aisles and from the street outside.
How much does it cost to enter Syracuse cathedral?
About two euros. Tickets are generally usable at any point during opening hours rather than being tied to the time you booked.
Why did the Greek temple survive in Syracuse?
Because it was converted rather than demolished. Most Greek temples in Sicily were quarried for building stone once they fell out of use. This one became a church in the seventh century AD, then a mosque, then a church again, and being continuously useful is what kept it standing.
What happened to the cathedral in the 1693 earthquake?
The earthquake destroyed the Norman façade. It was rebuilt in high Sicilian Baroque over the following decades, which is why the front of the building looks entirely unrelated to the ancient temple standing behind it.
Where is the Caravaggio in Syracuse?
The Burial of Saint Lucy, painted in 1608, hangs in the church of Santa Lucia alla Badia on the south side of the cathedral square in Ortigia. Opening hours vary, so check locally before making a special trip.
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