The Cathedral is a bright pearl one of the most picturesque areas of Syracuse. Here you can become acquainted with the peculiarities of ecclesiastical architecture of Italy - in the various elements of the building are intertwined characteristic of this architecture features that can be found in every town in the Apennine Peninsula from Trento to Taranto.

Most likely, the Cathedral was built on the site of a former temple, which sent their cults of the ancient Sicilians – the traces of their dwellings can be seen on the via Minerva and in the courtyard of the nearby Archbishop's Palace. In 480 BC, Greek settlers built a Doric temple here in honor of the goddess Athena for her help in the battle with the Carthaginians. Ten out of the previous 36 columns and today are seen near the wall of the left nave of the Cathedral. A monolithic block, the former part of the architrave of the temple, is now part of the altar in the presbytery.

This Doric temple was one of the richest in the whole of Magna Graecia, and it certainly means that he was repeatedly plundered. Especially serious damage was done to the temple in the 1st century BC by the Roman praetor Gaius Licinius by Verres in retaliation for the prosecution of corruption (fair). Among the destroyed items are portraits of the first rulers of Sicily.

It is not known when the ruins of an ancient Greek temple became a Christian Church. In 640 a year on the initiative of Bishop Zosima she became known as the Cathedral of Syracuse. Bishop significantly rebuilt the building, expanding it and, unfortunately, almost destroying the traces of the former buildings. Preserved only Byzantine arches and hemispherical apse at the end of the Northern side of the cloister, and a wonderful marble floor. In the next few centuries, the Cathedral once again became a kind of repository of priceless works of art. When in the middle of the 9th century Sicily was invaded by the Arabs, they took out over 5 thousand pounds of gold and 10 thousand pounds of silver. And then plundered the Cathedral was subjected to the most terrible humiliation – he was turned into a mosque for a century.

But, like many other Sicilian jewels, the Church was saved by the Normans, who once again brought her back into the fold of Christianity and erected in the Central nave of the fortified wall, which survived until our days almost intact. When the Normans the apse was decorated with mosaics, fragments of which can still be seen today on the wall behind the baptismal font. The font, by the way, was made by the Greeks, and it stands on the Foundation of the Norman era in the form of lions, carved in the 13th century.

After a period of relative prosperity in Eastern Sicily was again in ruins – this time in the terrible earthquake of 1693. The Cathedral was almost destroyed, and, like most of the buildings were later restored in the unique style of the Sicilian Baroque. Around the surviving of the Central nave and the apse was built several elegantly decorated chapels with elegant pillars, exquisite wrought iron gates, colorful frescoes and expertly executed statues. Pride was the facade of the Church, built a century later. It was designed by Andrea Palma and decorated with sculptures of the great Sicilian master Ignazio Marabotti.

The final stage of restoration of the Cathedral with a 3-thousand-year history began in 1911, when the architect Paolo Orso started the laborious work to remove the cause of the horror of "jewelry" of the 19th century, which exposed every Italian Church.