Ortigia has a history of more than a thousand years. One finds evidence of its past wherever one walks, in every street and in each of its numerous monuments. Indeed, Ortigia is one of the very few historical centres in the world in which one still finds traces of all of the historical epochs through which they have passed. In the case of this small island, the Greeks, the Romans, the Byzantines, the Arabs, the Normans, the Swabians, the Aragonese, the Catalans, the Viceroys, and the Savoyards have all left their unmistakable footprints. Ortigia can thus be thought of as an immense art history book, to which each epoch has contributed a page, and which needs only to be carefully read! The attentive visitor will discover innumerable monuments, which make Ortigia an extremely rare gem. The Greek theatre in Syracuse is the greatest example of theatre architecture in the western Greek empire. Peculiar for being almost entirely dug out of rock, the theatre played host not only to performances, but also to popular assemblies, as was the custom among the ancient Greeks. It was adapted for circus games under the Roman empire, and was then completely abandoned. Sicily’s most important archaeological museum was created in Syracuse in the eighteenth century, and is named after the great Syracusan archaeologist, Paolo Orsi, who carried out the most important studies of the city. The museum houses the most important documents regarding the prehistory and protohistory of Sicily, along with famous Greek and Roman artworks, ceramics, marbles, and architectural decorations. The exhibits derive from archaeological digs in the territories of the numerous Greek colonies of the area, from Megara Hyblea to Eloro, Akrai, Kaismenai, and Kamarina, and the oldest remains are from the Paleolithic period, the Neolithic period, and the Bronze Age. The collections of Greek-Sicilian necropoli, of ceramics, and of ancient statues are all particularly precious, while the museum’s ‘gem’ is the ‘Venere anadiomene’, the so-called ‘Landolina Venus’, a statue of Roman-Hellenic origin.