The contrast between the idyllic beauty of the garden, created by the Capuchin monks in this former quarry, and the dizzyingly sheer cliffs that surround it, has fascinated visitors to this site for centuries, to the point that since the 17th century it was included as "must see" of the "Grand Tour" in Italy. 

Additionally, this quarry (the oldest of those in Syracuse, going back to the 6th century B.C.) started as a stone quarry, but aside from signs of human activity also shows signs of the force of nature, including earthquakes, landslides, and erosion, in addition to an explosion of lush greenery, giving this site a rather "wild" and sometimes "lunar" appearance that cannot fail to strike the imagination.

 
Signs of mining activity that took place in the quarries of the Capuchins of Syracuse remain evident even after thousands of years. 

The prisoners in the quarries were at first hardly treated by the Syracusans. Crowded in a narrow hole, without any roof to cover them, the heat of the sun and the stifling closeness of the air tormented them during the day, and then the nights, which came on autumnal and chilly, made them ill by the violence of the change; besides, as they had to do everything in the same place for want of room, and the bodies of those who died of their wounds or from the variation in the temperature, or from similar causes, were left heaped together one upon another, intolerable stenches arose; while hunger and thirst never ceased to afflict them, each man during eight months having only half a pint of water and a pint of corn given him daily. 
In short, no single suffering to be apprehended by men thrust into such a place was spared them. For some seventy days they thus lived all together, after which all, except the Athenians and any Siceliots or Italiots who had joined in the expedition, were sold. 
The total number of prisoners taken it would be difficult to state exactly, but it could not have been less than seven thousand. 
This was the greatest Hellenic achievement of any in this war, or, in my opinion, in Hellenic history; at once most glorious to the victors, and most calamitous to the conquered. They were beaten at all points and altogether; all that they suffered was great; they were destroyed, as the saying is, with a total destruction, their fleet, their army, everything was destroyed, and few out of many returned home. 
Such were the events in Sicily. 
(Quote from: History of the Peloponnesian War, translation by Richard Crawley, 1903).  

 
This pylon which is now isolated once held the vault of a cave, which was destroyed by earthquakes over the centuries.

 
This enormous cavity in the Quarries of the Capuchins of Syracuse was completely excavated from human activity.

In addition to caves created by excavation and the pylons and gorges remaining from the collapsed caves, the site has paths immersed in vegetation, and an immense, impressive, open-air cavity, the edges of which peep out of the construction above, as though hovering over the void, while aerial roots of ficus run around the walls. 
During the summer, in such an area used as an open-air theater, a program of theater, music and dance presentations called "Latomia Arte” is organized every year (one can ask for the program at the reception desk of the Algilà Ortigia Charme Hotel).