MODICA. - It is the ancient Mutyka in Sicily, currently in the diocese of Noto. Christianity penetrated it very early and is attested by a hypogeum found in the Trepiedi district beneath a plateau.

The hypogeum contained a baldachin tomb and 38 large graves, one of which, still closed, contained the corpse of a little girl. Among the limestone inscriptions, mention is made of those of an Aitales, who had the church built, in the Hortensi district, and his tomb at the end of the 4th and the beginning of the 5th century. A second epigraph commemorates a Zosimus who died in the fifth consulate of Arcadius and Honorius, that is, in 399. A third, with the monogram, belongs to a Christian Agatha who died 14 days after the calends... A fourth epitaph is that of a Chrysiphorus who died at the age of 60; a fifth, quite mutilated, contains the mention of a presbyter. A second hypogeum is today used as a storeroom.

Bibliography

BIBL.: P. Orsi, Italia meridionale e insulare, in Atti del III Congresso internazionale di archeol. crist., Rome 1934, pp. 141-54, republished in Sicilia bizantina, Tivoli 1943, p. 221 ff. Better readings of the inscriptions have been given by A. Ferrua, Sicilia bizantina, in Epigraphica, 5-6 (1943-44), pp. 98-100.

Enrico Josi

@incollection{ec8_modica, author = {Josi, Enrico}, title = {Modica}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {VIII}, pages = {1202}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1952}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/modica} }

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