Temple of Concordia
In the Valley of the Temples outside Agrigento stands one of the best-preserved Greek temples anywhere. It survived because it became a church in the 6th century. It is a calm and regular Doric building with six by thirteen columns.
The Greek city of Akragas, today’s Agrigento, was founded around 580 BC and became one of the richest colonies in Sicily. Along a ridge south of the city its inhabitants built a series of temples in the 6th and 5th centuries BC. The one called the Temple of Concordia was built around 440–430 BC. We do not know which god it was dedicated to. The name comes from a Latin inscription found nearby in the 16th century that has nothing to do with the temple. The building is of local limestone, which was originally covered with white stucco and painted.
The temple is a regular Doric temple with six columns on the short sides and thirteen on the long sides, standing on a high base with four steps. Inside is a cella with a front porch and a rear porch. The columns lean slightly and have a gentle swelling, and the corner columns stand closer together, as in the Parthenon. What makes the temple unique is how much survives: the whole peristyle, the architrave, the pediments and the cella walls. The cella walls do, however, have round-arched openings that were cut when the temple was converted into a church.
Around the year 597 Bishop Gregory of Agrigento had the temple consecrated as a church of the apostles Peter and Paul. The cella walls were opened towards the columns so that the room gained aisles, and the gaps between the columns were walled up. As a church the building survived the Middle Ages, while the other temples in the valley were used as quarries. In 1748 it was restored as an ancient temple. The Valley of the Temples became a World Heritage Site in 1997. The Temple of Concordia gives an unusually complete picture of a Doric temple and is often used as a comparison when more ruined temples are studied.