Concordia Temple
Last Updated (Tuesday, 18 November 2008 12:47) Written by cips Monday, 03 November 2008 16:03
Kind of monument: Religious building
Location: Temple Valley of Agrigento, Italy
Groundbraking: 440 b.C
Year completed: 430 b.C.
Architectural style: Greek Doric style
Architect (main or first): Tommaso Fazello was the architect who turned the Temple into a Christian Basilica. We don’t know other architects’ names about this building.
The Concordia Temple is situated in the Temple Valley of Agrigento, a place characterized by the presence of seven different temples in Doric style. It has been built during the V century b.C. (440-430 b.C) and it is one of the best preserved structures of Agrigento’s Temple Valley. All the Temples of the Valley have been included in the UNESCO Heritage Site list in 1997. The main opinion about the origin of the Concordia Temple says it was built in order to celebrate Castore and Polluce, two heroes of Greek mythology. During the VI century a.C., the Concordia Temple has been turned into a Cristian basilica. To make this conversion, many open spaces between the columns of the temple were closed, giving more resistance to the whole building. The name Concordia Temple (the word Concordia in Italian means agreement, harmony) derives from a Latin inscription which has been found near this temple. Probably, it was Tommaso Fazello (the architect who guides the works of restoration) the first person to use this name.In 1748 Concordia Temple was restored to its original form. Concerning the materials, the Concordia Temple is made principally of yellow tufa, like many other monuments of the Temple Valley. Both the internal and the external part of the Temple were covered with polychrome stuccoes. The roof of the Temple was held up by a wooden truss; now we can see just the embedments of this truss.It has a very simple plan, typical of the Doric Style: rectangular, it has 6 columns along the shorter sides and 13 columns along the longer sides. Doric columns stood directly on the flat pavement (the stylobate) of a temple without a base; their vertical shafts were fluted with 20 parallel concave grooves; and they were topped by a smooth capital that flared from the column to meet a square abacus at the intersection with the horizontal beam (entablature) that they carried. All the columns of Concordia Temple surround the internal vain (sacerdotal cell); nowadays it is possible to visit the vain after passing a step. Internally and externally the Temple, we can notice some peculiar holes: they are medieval graves built nearby the Basilica, in conformity with the tradition.