The sovereign, born in 1120, was the fourth son of Roger II and Elvira of Castile. Educated at the court of Palermo, permeated by Arab culture, he was said to spend most of his time entertaining himself, often neglecting administrative affairs. Associated with his father's throne in 1151, he was cro...

The Zisa, coming from the Arabic word for splendid, stood within the magnificent Genoard park. The construction of the palace began with William I and was completed by his successor, William II. The Zisa was the king's summer residence and is one of the highest expressions of loca solatiorum. The em...

The worship of Saints Peter and Paul, considered to be the champions of the Christian Church, spread to Sicily with the advent of the Normans, during the process of Latinisation and Christianisation of the island. The medieval chronicler Goffredo Malaterra notes that the Norman victory against the S...

In 1185, Palermo Cathedral was dedicated and consecrated to the Blessed Virgin of the Assumption. The Assumption of Mary is one of the dogmas of the Catholic Church. Although it began to spread at the end of the 4th and beginning of the 5th century AD, it was not until 1950 that Pope Pius XII procla...

The Byzantine Church of Santa Domenica Kuriacia was dedicated to Saint Kyriaki, or Santa Domenica di Tropea, and stood in the western countryside, near the village of Rocca. Later donated to the monastery of Santa Maria Nuova, it was probably the seat of the diocese of Palermo during the Arab domina...

Arab geographer and traveller, Ibn Hawqal was born in Nisibin in 943. After spending his youth in Baghdad, he travelled for about 30 years, even reaching Western India, and in 973 he arrived in Sicily. Upon returning to his home town, he wrote the work Kitāb al-masālik wa l-mamālik, translated a...

The Gami Mosque, built on the site of an early Byzantine settlement, was a large building open for worship, as its name suggests, on Fridays. Re-adapted by the Aghlabid dynasty, sources say that it could accommodate seven thousand people and was distinguished by its size and magnificence. Square in ...

Capital, from the Latin capitellum, diminutive of caput , i.e. head, is an architectural element placed as the end of a load-bearing structure, such as a pilaster or a column. The capital is usually decorated according to the canons of the Classical period and the relevant styles: Doric, Ionic, Cori...

The pointed arch, or ogival arch, is a type of arch formed by two curving sides, arising from two centres. This allows the keystone, at the point of intersection, to be higher than the classic full-centre arch. Already used in Islamic and Byzantine architecture, it also appeared in Cluny in 1088, wi...

In the mosaic cycle of the Monreale Cathedral, the representation of the sovereign, who commissioned the complex, occurs twice: above the wall of the royal throne and on the wall of the archiepiscopal throne. In the second mosaic, the King of Sicily is shown kneeling and offering the Cathedral to th...