Cave of the Sibyl in Marsala
The Grotta della Sibilla di Marsala finds you under the church of San Giovanni Battista , on a green esplanade, lapped on one side by the sea and on the other by the suggestive Viale Isonzo, inside the Archaeological Park of Lilibeo .
According to tradition, the Sibyl's cave is connected, as a sepulcher or dwelling, to the Sibilla Lillibetana . In the Greco-Roman world the Sibyl was a prophetess inspired by Apollo and spokesman for the god; among the many sibyls the most famous was that of Eritre in Lydia, often identified with the Cumaean Sibyl, who professed in Campania, and with the Lilibetan Sibyl, a multiform pagan divinity that hovers in many Sicilian folk tales.
Over the centuries. , this cave became an integral part of the cult building. It consists of a central room, circular in shape, connected with two rooms. Part of the room is carved into the rock and is covered by a low dome, built in masonry, with a skylight connected to the floor of the church. In the center of the room there is a square basin, not very deep, served with water, where once the first Christians were baptized. The northern room, partly obtained from a well whose cut on the right of the apsidal wall can be observed, entirely excavated in the rock, has a semicircular shape and is an apse. At the floor level, a spring gushes out which feeds the tub in the central room. In front of the cavity there is a large stone altar with a very high relief marble image of St. John the Baptist, datable to the 15th century.
Several legends are connected to the Sibyl's cave.
