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Agrigento is Sicily’s richest
archaeological treasure and it has always described as the ‘most
beautiful city of the mortals’. The city of Agrigento originated
form the ancient Akragas that colonist from the neighbouring Gela
founded around 500 B.C., being a favourable and fertile area. The
main reason why the ancient Greeks waited so long before colonising
the area, the centre of which was Agrigento, was because its
location was inadequate to the construction of ports being along the
sea with hilly cliffs eroded by the wind. The main motivation to
develop the area was to monitor the movements of Carthage and
presenting a barrier against assailants. The present day city reflects its glorious past in the Valley of Temples. In it there are a series of temples which were all erected in the course of a century (5C BC), it is interesting to point out that all the buildings face east, respecting the Classical criterion (both Greek and Roman) that the entrance where the statue of the god was housed could be illuminated by the rays of the rising sun, the source and blood of life. Agrigento is also the place of birth of the famous writer Luigi Pirandello, Nobel Prize winner in 1934. The house of Pirandello is a typical example of a building of the Agrigento countryside. Surmounting an enchanting bay, the visitor can reach the Castle of Montechiaro built in the 15th c.B.C., to defend the land from pirates. In the historical hearth of Agrigento, there is the Church of St. Nicholas was erected in the 13C in a transitional Romanesque to Gothic style. Finally a broad double stairway leads up to the main door of the cathedral which was rebuilt in the 13C-14C. Entering from the cloisters of San Nicola, partially housed in the old monastery of San Nicola, there is the archaeological museum which contains finds from the province of Agrigento. Agrigento offers an extraordinary inheritance of exceptional historical value amid a surrounding of breathtaking intensity and variety. |
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