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. ...

From the Greek προσκύνησις, coming from the verb προσκυνέω, which means "to bring the hand to the mouth to send a kiss", it is an act of reverence that the Assyrians and later the Persians used when they were in the presence of a sovereign or other person of high rank. In the Byz...

The Palatine Chapel is currently located inside the Royal Palace of Palermo. Commissioned by King Roger II, its construction began in 1130 and was consecrated on 28 April 1140 as the private chapel of the sovereign and the royal family. With a central layout and three aisles, it is characterised by ...

George of Antioch was born around 1090. After living first in Syria, where he held financial posts, he moved to Tunisia in the service of the Emir Al Madia. In 1112 he moved to Palermo where he soon became an admiral and official of the first king of Sicily, Roger II. A man of culture, he founded th...

The Church of San Cataldo, dating back to around 1160, was built at the behest of Maione da Bari, grand chancellor and great admiral of King William I from 1154 to 1160. Designed by Islamic craftsmen in the Western Romanesque style, the exterior has a compact and solid volume with blind recessed arc...

During the Muslim rule, from 948, Sicily was governed by the Kalbita Emirate, who carried out a territorial reorganisation of the island by dividing it into three large areas, called the Valleys. This subdivision, already reported in a Norman document of 1094, described as "antiquae divisiones sarac...

In the Zisa Palace, the marble shādirwānis the chute with steps and opus sectile decorations through which water, coming from below the mosaics, flowed into the large outdoor pools. Of Islamic and generally oriental descent, the sloping slide of the shādirwāncreated wonderful shimmering reflecti...

The Gabriele, or Cariopele, is one of Palermo's rivers. Portrayed as a mature man in the Piazza Pretoria fountain, its source, on the slopes of Mount Caputo, consists of four streams running close together: Gabriel, Nixio, Campofranco and Cuba. The waters of the Gabriele fed the Zisa, the Cuba and r...

Tuff is one of the most widely used pyroclastic rocks as a building material since ancient times. Under the name "tuff", various soft limestone rocks with similar characteristics are combined. One of the special features of tuff is its lightness and its ability to be easily worked, sawn and moulded....