Syracuse

Corinthian colonists led by Archias landed on Ortygia in 733 BC, drove out the Sicels and founded Syrakousai. Under rulers such as Gelon, Hiero I, Dionysius I, Agathocles and Hiero II, it became one of the largest cities of the ancient world, fought Carthage for control of Sicily and destroyed the great Athenian expedition sent against it. Its court hosted Aeschylus, Pindar and Plato. Archimedes, born here, helped defend the city when Rome besieged it; when it fell in 212 BC he was killed, and Marcellus carried its treasures to Rome. Syracuse remained the capital of Roman Sicily, St Paul stayed for three days in 61, and St Lucy was martyred here in 304.

The Byzantine emperor Constans II made Syracuse his capital from 663 to 668. It fell to the Arabs in 878 after a brutal siege, and Palermo replaced it as Sicily's capital for good. The Normans took it in 1085; from 1302 it was governed through the Queen's Chamber, which gave it unusual autonomy. Under Charles V it became a fortress, Spanish engineers cut the isthmus to make Ortygia an island again, and the Knights Hospitaller stayed a year before moving to Malta in 1530. Earthquakes in 1542 and 1693 devastated the city, and it was rebuilt in Sicilian Baroque.

Nelson's fleet called here, an American squadron was based in the port during the First Barbary War, and the city freed itself from Bourbon rule and surrendered to Garibaldi's forces in 1860. The Allies took it on 9–10 July 1943, and the armistice was signed nearby at Cassibile. A huge petrochemical complex grew to the north from the late 1950s, bringing jobs and pollution. In 2005 Syracuse and the necropolis of Pantalica became a World Heritage Site.

Syracuse claims a founding role in theatre: Plato credited the city with the birth of comedy, and Aeschylus worked in its theatre. Since 1914 the National Institute of Ancient Drama has staged Greek tragedies and comedies there again, from May to July each year, and the institute includes an academy of ancient drama. The Opera dei Pupi survives in a small puppet theatre and a puppet museum, and the city hosts film festivals and has been the set for many films.

Santa Lucia is at the heart of local identity. Her silver statue is carried through the streets on 13 December and returned to the cathedral a week later, and since 1927 a young Swedish woman dressed in white has walked in the procession — the root of the city's twinning with Stockholm. The feast is repeated on the first Sunday of May, recalling a dove that announced the end of a famine in 1646. In 1953 an image of the Virgin was reported to weep, and the vast Sanctuary of Our Lady of Tears was built in response.

Syracusans call theirs the "white city" for its pale Hyblaean stone, locally nicknamed nougat stone. The dialect turns D into R and carries many Spanish words. Papyrus, which grows wild here as nowhere else in Europe, has its own museum and institute.

About 116,000 people live in the municipality, according to a 2025 figure — fewer than at the 1991 peak, as emigration and low birth rates thin the population. Most live in the modern mainland districts of Tiche, Akradina and Grotta Santa; only about 4 per cent live on Ortygia itself. The municipality also includes the outlying villages of Belvedere and Cassibile and settlements along the southern coast. Foreign residents, about 5 per cent, come above all from Sri Lanka, Morocco and Romania.

Services employ the most people. The petrochemical hub to the north, one of the largest in Europe, produces a large share of Italy's refined oil products, though its weight in the local economy has declined, and solar energy is being developed. Farming matters too: the area is Italy's leading lemon district, and the new potatoes and Cassibile strawberries are well known. Tourism is growing fast.

The city has no full university of its own, though the University of Catania runs an architecture faculty here. Online outlets now carry most local news, after the last print-newspaper office in the city closed in 2021, and in 2015 Syracuse was chosen for a national research project to become a "smart city".

Syracuse's cooking has been talked about since antiquity — Plato disapproved of the lavishness of Syracusan banquets — and today it is part of the Mediterranean diet. Signature dishes include Syracusan fried pasta, spaghetti with tuna bottarga, the city's fish soup and tuna alla ghiotta. Bakers make impanata, a closed pizza filled with potatoes that descends from the Spanish empanada, and the pizzolo, and arancini here take a cylindrical shape.

Local produce gives the table its character: the Siracusa lemon, Sicilian blood oranges, Syracuse new potatoes and watermelons, Monti Iblei olive oil, olives, fish and the strawberries of Cassibile. The wines include Nero d'Avola and the sweet Moscato di Siracusa.

The sweets are a point of pride. Almond granita is the local version of the semi-frozen ice, celebrated in Elio Vittorini's novel The Red Carnation. Totò are chocolate biscuits covered in icing, giuggiulena is a nougat-like Christmas sweet of sesame seeds set in honey, cuccìa, boiled wheat with sugar, is eaten on Santa Lucia's day, and the Syracusan cassata is made with sponge cake, alongside quince paste and almond pastries.