The “Paolo Orsi” – The Regional Archaeological Museum
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Museum is dedicated to Paolo Orsi, the great archaeologist from Rovereto,
Trento (1859-1935). An expert of Hellenic and pre-Hellenic civilisations,
he worked for years in Sicily; in Syracuse, he arranged the first
Archaeological Museum in Piazza Duomo, a task which was later continued by
another great archaeologist, Bernabň Brea, in the post-war period. As the
exhibition space proved insufficient to house all the material from the
great investigation and campaigns in the main archaeological sites of
eastern Sicily, the new Museum was begun in 1927, with financial support
from the Development Fund for Southern Italy (Cassa del Mezzogiorno) and
the Regional Ministry for Cultural and Environmental Heritage, and opened
in 1988. Built in the park of Villa Landolina by the architect Franco
Menissi, it is the most important and innovative museum in Sicily, and one
of the foremost in Europe. In its 9,000 sq m of exhibition space on two
floors, the Museum displays 18,000 archaeological finds from the city of
Syracuse and from the eastern regions of the island. The museum extends
horizontally and is arranged on two floors. It houses 3,000 sq m of
storerooms and laboratories
in the basement, and the exhibition rooms on the upper floor. In
the central body, a hall leads into the Auditorium, equipped with modern
audiovisual systems for the projection of films and slides, and also used
for cultural and information activities. The chronological succession of
exhibits in the various sectors starts from the prehistoric and
protohistoric ages, from the Paleolithic to the Neolithic, and continues
with the Copper Age and different stages of the Bronze (early, middle,
late and last) and Iron Ages. The following sector displays material from
the first Greek colonies of Naxos, Mylai, Zancle, Katane and Leontinoi,
the largest space being devoted to the Doric colonies of Megara Hyblaea
and Syracuse. Of extreme historical and artistic interest are the tomb
furnishing from the Syracusan necropolis, with a vast collection of
Corinthian, Ionic, Rhodian, Attic and Etruscan imported pottery. Next are
the architectural terracottas from the urban and extra-urban sanctuaries
of Syracuse, from the temple of Apollo, the Athenaion, the Ciane Sanctuary,
the temple of ApolloTemenites, the two sanctuaries of Artemis at Scala
Greca and Belvedere and the temple of Olympian Zeus on the banks of the
Anapo. There is a rich collection of religious terracottas manufactured in
Siceliot workshops in the 5C and 4C BC, from Gela, Agrigento, Camarina and
other eastern sites of the island.
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