This monument is located in Agrigento (Piazzetta Vadalà) and portrays the philosopher, thaumaturgist and physician Empedocles.
As a doctor, it is considered to be the founder of the sicilian medical school (apparently he discovered the bony labyrinth in the inner ear); besides, his healer fame probably come from his knowledge of a particular respiration control technique, which allow to temporarily suspend the physiological body functions and to cause a moment of apparent death.
His philosophy is based on two opposing forces, Love and Strife, who dominates the universe, mixing and separating the four elements, air, water, fire and earth, that were at the base of everything. In the monument the two forces are represented by two faces that appear in Empedocles bust. It is a bronze statue sculptured by Nino Contini and placed on a solid marble base; on the base it’s carved the famous sentence: “they always were and always will be in the infinite time/eternally”
- Photos and main text by Alessia Miceli and Valentina Marziali (January 2015)
- Locate the item on this Google Map