B&B MiraValle Agrigento is just a 500-metre walk from the Santa Maria dei Greci Basilica.
the Church of Santa Maria dei Greci stands on the street of the same name, on the hill of Girgenti.
It corresponds to the ancient temple of Athena or of Zeus Atabyrios, dating back to the time of Theron.
Traces of this temple remain in the foundations and in the remains of the cella: it was a hexastyle peripteral temple, with thirteen columns on the long sides, similar to the Temple of Concordia, measuring 34.70 x 15.10 metres.
The church is called 'dei Greci' (of the Greeks) because, during Byzantine rule, it was a cathedral of the Greek-Orthodox rite: it later became a Catholic cathedral, before San Gerlando.
The current building dates back to the 12th-13th century. Simple and severe, the façade has Gothic lines recalling the architecture typical of the Swabian age.
The entrance is embellished by a remarkable pointed-arch portal, whose keystone bears a shield. The interior has three naves. The central one has a fourteenth-century wooden ceiling with painted trusses. On the walls are traces of seven fourteenth-century frescoed panels, arranged around the figure of an enthroned Madonna and Child that has been partly destroyed. It is the so-called Madonna del Latte, with an explicit reference to the Church depicted in Mary, indicated by her son as a source of grace. The seven panels represented scenes from the life of Mary. The two remaining ones depict the Vision of Saint Joachim on the mountain, in which an angel appears to announce the imminent motherhood of Saint Anne, and the Presentation of Mary at the Temple. The church preserves a marble sarcophagus from 1570 containing the bones of two Palermo nobles: Bartolomeo Caputo and Isabella Termini.
During the most recent restorations, the 19th-century crypt and 'colatoio' (draining chamber) were found, where the members of the Confraternity of Santa Maria dei Greci were dried, seated, before burial. The seats are carved into the living rock below the floor level of the temple cella.
Source: Cathedral Agrigento
™