The Greek and later Latin name for Palermo is Panormos/Panorums. The word could have several meanings. From the Greek pan-hormos, meaning “all moored”, it indicates a harbour with a deep anchorage or, more likely, it derives from the Greek hormos meaning “necklace”. This hypothesis is confir...

Byzantine art, which was developed from the 4th to the 16th century A.D., is characterised by a style that takes Hellenistic-Roman art and enriches it with oriental stylistic elements, typical of Asia Minor. If architecture has majestic and solemn churches, usually in the shape of a Greek cross, fig...

The Palermo Tiraz, located inside the Royal Palace, was a workshop where fabrics and precious stones were worked. Active during the Arab and then Norman periods, the items produced in the Tiraz included carpets, jewellery and, in particular, the cloak of Roger II and the Crown of Constance of Aragon...

Roger, known as the Great Count, was responsible for the conquest of Sicily, together with his brother Robert Guiscard. After the 1061 landing in Messina and the surrender of the city, the Normans invaded the Val Demone almost without difficulty and, with the town of Rometta, many strongholds fell. ...

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, consists of two circular arches intersecting at the apex. It was used in Islamic and Byzantine architecture and was revived in Sicily (in Cefalù, Palermo and Monreale) during the Norman-Swabian period. It also appeared in Cluny in 1088, with the construction of the...

The pointed arch, or ogival arch, consists of two circular arches intersecting at the apex. It was used in Islamic and Byzantine architecture and was revived in Sicily (in Cefalù, Palermo and Monreale) during the Norman-Swabian period. It also appeared in Cluny in 1088, with the construction of the...

The pointed arch, or ogival arch, consists of two circular arches intersecting at the apex. It was used in Islamic and Byzantine architecture and was revived in Sicily (in Cefalù, Palermo and Monreale) during the Norman-Swabian period. It also appeared in Cluny in 1088, with the construction of the...

The pseudo Ugo Falcando already mentions the fertile and green plain of Palermo and its products in the 12th century. In the Epistle ad Petrum, there are also references to the crown of mountains that surrounds the flat area and it is noticeable how the landscape seems to be involved in and affected...

The term “nave” also has a symbolic meaning: it refers to St. Peter's ship/boat (nave in Italian) that welcomes and guides the "people of God", which is why it is covered by a roof that is sometimes keeled. Like an upside-down boat hull. The reference to Peter's boat occurs twice in Matthew's Go...