Siracusa is a rich city. There's lots of money here and the city has a rich, complex history, in part because it was once the most important city in the Mediterranean, and even when it wasn't such a big deal on the deep blue sea, it is still Sicily's 2nd most important city, after Palermo. The area with the most treasures is Ortygia, the island community founded by Greek settlers from Corinth in the 773 B.C. (just checked my guide book!). I took a really intimate look at Ortygia today, walking with Angela, an Italian teacher and tour guide who kept my head buzzing with beautiful insights and solid information about the history of the buildings and piazzas we explored this morning. All in Italian. I felt good. She mostly understood me, and being a teacher, corrected me when I made mistakes and I mostly understood her, occasionally getting lost and having to get her to explain things a little more simply, which she always did.
We met at the Piazza Archimede (yes, that famous Greek scientist lived, worked and died in Siracusa) and took a meandering route through windy streets (at one point we were on Via Labirinto), starting out in Giudeca, the old Jewish quarter. The Jewish population has since moved onto to less expensive quarters and we passed lots of old buildings being renovated, probably future chicy chicy b&bs. Many of the old bottegas and synagogues have been turned into apartment buildings or Baroque churches. So, why so many Baroque churches in Siracusa, and Palermo, for that matter? Turns out a severe earthquake in the 18th century wiped out whole communities across Sicily and, according to Angela, the rich families in the city competed with each other to build more elaborate churches than their neighbors. In Palermo, it's a little disturbing to see huge Baroque churches with elaborate columns and statues galore neglected, dirty, seemingly decaying in public. In Siracusa, the churches are much better maintained and beautiful. At one point, Angela pointed out a small relief sculpture of an angel, high up on the blank wall of an apartment building (or church?), all that remained of a 12th century church that was leveled by the earthquake.
We walked down Via Delle Maestranze, another part of the old Jewish quarter that is now the home of Siracusa's super rich, and ended up in front of the puppet museum. Sicilian cities all have their puppet companies and I had a look at the simple, but fun stage in the local puppet theater. Two shows on Monday night, based on a Medieval story about a woman named Angelica who is pursued by a knight, Orlando, who loves her. She doesn't feel the same way. One of "spectacoli" on Monday is "Angelica si fuga," Angelica Runs Away. Should be fun.
We then walked to the spring of Arethusa, a pool where "aqua dolce," fresh water, emerges from underground and supports bushy papyrus plants and fish, including koi, and then spills into the salty waters of the bay. Angela pointed out that the Greek myth of Arethusa is one of the stories about women that gives Siracusa it's particular character. In Piazza Archimede, for instance, there is a fountain where Artemis, the hunter goddess, protects Arethusa, a water nymph pursued by a river spirit, by transforming her into a spring. The Greeks believed that Arethusa eluded her pursuer (seems like a running them in Siracusa!) by emerging in Ortygia. One of the other female stories centers around Santa Lucia, an early Christian martyr who is one of patron saints of the city. Standing outside of the church dedicated to her (the church includes a painting by Caravaggio, who spent some time in Siracusa before he was hounded into oblivion by the Knights of Malta), Angela said that Siracusa and Venezia had a long rivalry over her real remains and there was a time when the relics went back and forth between the two cities. Now this was in Italian and at first I thought she was saying that Caravaggio's remains where in contention, but no, she made sure I understood we were talking about the saint, not the sinner.
We took a nice stroll around the Duomo, another spectacular Baroque masterpiece built on top of a Greek temple in honor of Athena, the goddess of wisdom and war. Looking at the Doric columns that are built into exterior walls of the cathedral, Angela said that one of Siracusa's tyrants (there were a number of tyrants who had extraordinary powers over the citizens during times of war, and the Greeks were constantly at war, either with the Carthaginians and Romans, when they weren't fighting each other), who was not Corinthian, had an entirely new temple to Athena built next door because he didn't think that a Doric temple was the correct style in which to honor a goddess. Talk about political correctness!
From the Duomo, we wandered up Via Roma and suddenly we were back at Piazza Archimede. Angela had cleverly took us on a zigzaggy circle through the heart of Ortygia and brought us back full circle to where we started from. Later on, after she left and I was sitting down over a tiny cup of espresso and a broccoli and cheese pastry, I retraced our steps on the map and she had effortlessly, but with great style, taken me through many of the high points of Ortygia, pointing out a lot of the historical details that I would never have come across on my own.
I was so glad that Luisa, my contact at the language school in Siracusa, had connected me with Angela because she not only gave me lots of information, but she was interested in what I had to say about many of the things I've seen on my long journey through Italy and that was reassuring, both that I could express myself clearly enough in Italian that she understood me and that I had seen things, like the abandoned buildings in Palermo and the ever-present graffitti calling for the release of Gianmarco, a student activist who is being held in prison by the Italian government, that reflected contemporary realities of Italy that are not included in the guide books. I really liked Angela and I wish her good luck with her work as a teacher and guide. She certainly made my day, here in Siracusa.
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