Description
The Achillian Baths are what remains of a late-imperial Roman bath complex, buried under Piazza del Duomo in Catania. You go down a ramp to the right of the cathedral's facade, and you find a small part of a complex that must have been enormous.
The heart of the route is the Hall of the Pillars, a frigidarium: a square chamber of about 11 by 12 meters with a cross vault held up by four pillars, and in the middle a small square pool that was once faced in marble. You reach it through a barrel-vaulted corridor.
Around it are the parallel basins of the water filtration and settling system, and the tepidarium, a curved room heated by air channels. The running water that passes through the basins and the pool in the center show that the hall was used for cold baths.
Walls and ceiling were covered with painted stuccoes with cupids, vine shoots and bunches of grapes. Today they are badly worn, but in the 18th century they could be read clearly: the painter Jean Houël portrayed them in a watercolor, convinced he was in the temple of Bacchus.
The name comes from a Greek inscription carved on a marble slab, broken into fragments and today pieced together in the Civic Museum of Castello Ursino. It tells that around 434 the building was scaled down, for a very practical purpose: to save on the firewood used to heat the water.
How big the baths were is not known precisely. Sebastiano Ittar's 19th-century reconstruction suggests an enclosure running from the Amenano fountain to the Archbishop's Palace, and other remains turned up as far as Via Garibaldi, where traces of a hypocaust floor were found in 1856.
In 1088 Bishop Ansgerius built the cathedral and its monastery right inside that enclosure. The earthquakes of 1169 and 1693 did the rest: the baths stayed underground, until their remains were rediscovered.
From 1974 to 1994 the baths were closed because they were considered unsafe, and then closed again several times because of flooding. After the paving work on the square, between 2004 and 2006, they were covered by a steel plate that reinforces the ground of the square and reopened for visits and events.
Don't miss
• The Hall of the Pillars.
• The stuccoes with grapes.
• The filtration basins.
Did you know?
• The fragments of the inscription that gave the baths their name are at Castello Ursino, not here.
• According to several authors, four tablets with the inscription THERMAS were walled into the cathedral's pillars.
The heart of the route is the Hall of the Pillars, a frigidarium: a square chamber of about 11 by 12 meters with a cross vault held up by four pillars, and in the middle a small square pool that was once faced in marble. You reach it through a barrel-vaulted corridor.
Around it are the parallel basins of the water filtration and settling system, and the tepidarium, a curved room heated by air channels. The running water that passes through the basins and the pool in the center show that the hall was used for cold baths.
Walls and ceiling were covered with painted stuccoes with cupids, vine shoots and bunches of grapes. Today they are badly worn, but in the 18th century they could be read clearly: the painter Jean Houël portrayed them in a watercolor, convinced he was in the temple of Bacchus.
The name comes from a Greek inscription carved on a marble slab, broken into fragments and today pieced together in the Civic Museum of Castello Ursino. It tells that around 434 the building was scaled down, for a very practical purpose: to save on the firewood used to heat the water.
How big the baths were is not known precisely. Sebastiano Ittar's 19th-century reconstruction suggests an enclosure running from the Amenano fountain to the Archbishop's Palace, and other remains turned up as far as Via Garibaldi, where traces of a hypocaust floor were found in 1856.
In 1088 Bishop Ansgerius built the cathedral and its monastery right inside that enclosure. The earthquakes of 1169 and 1693 did the rest: the baths stayed underground, until their remains were rediscovered.
From 1974 to 1994 the baths were closed because they were considered unsafe, and then closed again several times because of flooding. After the paving work on the square, between 2004 and 2006, they were covered by a steel plate that reinforces the ground of the square and reopened for visits and events.
Don't miss
• The Hall of the Pillars.
• The stuccoes with grapes.
• The filtration basins.
Did you know?
• The fragments of the inscription that gave the baths their name are at Castello Ursino, not here.
• According to several authors, four tablets with the inscription THERMAS were walled into the cathedral's pillars.