Description
The Terme dell'Indirizzo are a small Roman bath complex in Piazza Currò, a few steps from the cathedral and Castello Ursino. They are among the best-preserved Roman baths in Europe: five main rooms are still standing, with their original roofs.
They date from the late Imperial age, between the 3rd and 5th centuries. Close to the port, in a merchants' quarter, they were in all likelihood public baths. They are built of concrete faced with lava-stone blocks, with brick arches.
The route follows that of a Roman bather. You enter through the changing room, where a niche in the wall served as a latrine; then you pass into the frigidarium, the cold room, and two tepidaria, the warm rooms.
The heart of the complex is the caldarium, the hot room: an octagonal space covered by a dome almost 10 meters high, lit by windows on two levels, all on the sides not facing north.
Three pools open around the caldarium. In one you can still see the suspensurae, the little pillars that held up the floor and let hot air circulate underneath. Next to it is the laconicum, a small room for sweating: a kind of sauna.
The name comes from the nearby church of Santa Maria dell'Indirizzo. According to legend, in 1610 the viceroy of Sicily, the Duke of Osuna, caught in a storm at sea, was saved by a light that appeared to "direct" him toward a safe landing.
In the 17th century the ruins ended up inside a Carmelite convent and were used as a storeroom. Sources of the time mistook them for an ancient public palace; it was the Prince of Biscari, in the 1770s, who realized they were baths.
Biscari still found stretches of lead piping in the walls and took them to his museum. The baths became fully visible again only in the 1930s.
They date from the late Imperial age, between the 3rd and 5th centuries. Close to the port, in a merchants' quarter, they were in all likelihood public baths. They are built of concrete faced with lava-stone blocks, with brick arches.
The route follows that of a Roman bather. You enter through the changing room, where a niche in the wall served as a latrine; then you pass into the frigidarium, the cold room, and two tepidaria, the warm rooms.
The heart of the complex is the caldarium, the hot room: an octagonal space covered by a dome almost 10 meters high, lit by windows on two levels, all on the sides not facing north.
Three pools open around the caldarium. In one you can still see the suspensurae, the little pillars that held up the floor and let hot air circulate underneath. Next to it is the laconicum, a small room for sweating: a kind of sauna.
The name comes from the nearby church of Santa Maria dell'Indirizzo. According to legend, in 1610 the viceroy of Sicily, the Duke of Osuna, caught in a storm at sea, was saved by a light that appeared to "direct" him toward a safe landing.
In the 17th century the ruins ended up inside a Carmelite convent and were used as a storeroom. Sources of the time mistook them for an ancient public palace; it was the Prince of Biscari, in the 1770s, who realized they were baths.
Biscari still found stretches of lead piping in the walls and took them to his museum. The baths became fully visible again only in the 1930s.