The Cathedral of Palermo

Palermo is a unique city in the world because it is really bizarre the clear and palpable feeling, for those who visit it, to walk inside a centrifuge of millenary history, where traces of cultures and architectures Phoenician, Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Arab, Norman, Aragonese etc. overlap each other sometimes creating completely new architectural styles or simply designed by chance, which continuously evoke emotions to those who visit it. From this city, as from all Sicily, the Muslim domination seems never to have left but to be constantly latent, subliminal. The Cathedral of Palermo, a few hundred meters beyond the Norman Palace (seat of temporal power during the millennial history of Palermo) is an example of this mixture. Its origin is lost in the mists of time and its current appearance is the result of 3000 years of renovations, whose principle perhaps dates back to a Phoenician place of worship (eighth century BC). Superbly Arab-Norman in appearance on the outside, it changes its face completely after the entrance door, as if an invisible time machine took us to another era, Aragonese, Renaissance, Art Nouveau. The Cathedral houses the tombs of two of the greatest men of all time, Kings of Sicily: Roger II the Norman and Frederick II of Swabia, the Stupor Mundi. A little further on you can see the dome of the church of San Salvatore (XI century) from whose loggia you can enjoy an extraordinary view of the city.

(photo) Palermo, Archbishop’s palace in the background, Cathedral on the right. People and temporary structures for the public execution of heretics, paper ink, 1724, Francesco Ciche