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three miles from the sea, on a steep rock overlooking covered; the fact was comiueraorated in tlie coat of

a rich plain watered by the Drago. Besiiles a trade in arms of Girgenti. Other edifices of the city were; the

vegetables, fruits, and cereals, it is a mining centre for temple of Castor and Pollux, of which there remains

sulphur, soda, chalk, copper, and iron. Its marble an architrave supported on four pillars; the temple of

quarries are also rich. The Greeks called it Acragas; Vulcan; that of Ceres and Proserpine; and the re-

the Romans Agrigentum. It was founded by a Greek colony from Gela about 5S2 B. c. The upper portion of the town was already in exist- ence. It was called Camicum from its position on a platform of Mt. Camicus, and was surrounded by Cyclopean walls. The Greeks set- tled at the foot of this acropolis. which they made the acropolis of their city; soon the town was doing a rich trade with the Carthaginians, and was reckoned, after Syracuse, the first town in Sicily. Like other Doric towns, it became a repuljlic. but was often under the control of tyrants, e. g. Phalaris the Cruel (570-555), Theron (488-472), who with Gelon of Syracuse defeated the Carthaginians under Hamilcar near Himera (ISO b. c). The war of Thrasydeus, son and successor of Theron, on Hieron of Syracuse,

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mains of a stadium. In 827 the Arabs, called in by the Byzantine tribune Euphemios, captured the city, and spread over the whole island. In the eleventh century Girgenti was the centre of Saracen resistance to the Normans, who finally captured it in 1087; thence- forth it shared the fortune of the Ivingdom of the Two Sicilies.

In the roll of its illustrious citizens are found the names of the philoso- phers Empedocles and Acron; the historian Philinos; the musician Metellos, Plato's master; the dram- atists Archion and Carenos; the orator Sophocles; the humanist Xicolo la Valle; and the dramatist Francesco del Carretto. Among the natural cm'iosities of note in the neighbourhood is the hill of Mac- calubba, studded with small craters, about thirty inches deep, spouting

brought Agrigentum under the tjTants of Syracuse cold water, carbonic acid, and hydrogen mixed with

(471 B. c), but it soon regained its freedom. In 406 asphaltum, chalk, sulphate of lime, etc. The cathe-

the Carthaginians under Hannibal and later under dral is built of ancient materials, and has a beautiful

Himilco besieged the city, captured it, slew the in- Madonna by Guido Reni, and paintings by Nunzio

habitants, and despoiled the temples of their artistic Magro. The church of S. Nicolo exhibits a very fine

treasures, which were car- ried off to Carthage. Once more it regained au- tonomy, only to fall under the tvranny of Phintias (288 B. c). After this it became the centre of Carthaginian resistance to Rome. In 262 the Ro- mans captured it for the first time, and in 210 they gained complete control. The wealth and splendour of the ancient city are at- tested by all writers, and by ruins that remain till this day. The principal antiquitiesare: the temple of Jupiter on the acropolis, of which seven columns of the peristyle remain; that of Minerva, to which many of the townsfolk fled in 406 B. c, seeking death under its ruins rather than fall into the hands of the Carthaginians; in the dis- trict known as Neapolis the temple of Hercules mentioned by Cicero in his "Oratio in Verrem"; the Temple of Concord, in old Ionic style, the best pre- served of them all, because used as a church in later

times; over one of the cornices was carved a treaty of alliance between Agrigentum and Lilybteum. There are, moreover: the temple of Juno Lacinia; the tem- ple of jEsculapius, which contained a bronze statue of the god (this work of MjTon was carried away to Carthage but restored by Scipio Africanus); the tem- ple of Olympian Jove, according to Polybius the

Norman doorway. Gir- genti venerates St.Liber- tinus as its earliest apos- tle; he is said to have been sent thither by St. Peter. The earliest bishop of whose date we are cer- tain is St. Potaraius, a contemporary of Pope Agapetus I (535-36). St. tiregory I, Bishop of Agri- gentum, saitl to have been martyred in 262, is proba- i 'ly only a double of the homonymous bishop who was a contemporarj' of St. (Iregory the Great. The list of bishops, interrupted by the Saracen invasion, began again in 1093 with .>t. Gerlando. Other bish- ops of note are: Rinaldo di Acquaviva (1244), who restored the cathedral and crowned King Man- fred, for which latter ac- tion he was excommuni- cated by Alexander IV; and Fra Matteo Giramara, called the Blessed. Gir- genti is a suffragan of Monreale, has 66 parishes and 381,000 souls, 10 re- ligious houses for men, and 42 for women. It is

also a centre for the Azione Cattolica Sociale in Sicilv. PiRRi. Sirilin .Sacra (16381, II. 263-:3S4; Srdeil., I. 691-764;

Cappelletti, Z,ecAiese(i'//a;ta.XXI: Picone, Memorie storiche

agriqentine; Rocco, Girgenti in Italia Artistica (Bergamo,

1904), X; Chevaueb, Topo-bibl., s. v.

U. Benigni. Gisbert, Blaise, French rhetorician and critic;

EDRAL OF Girgenti

largest and most beautiful in Sicily. In 1401 three b. at Cahors, 21 February, 16,57; d. at Montpellier, 21 colossal caryatides supporting an architrave were dis- February, 1731. Having entered the Society of Jesus