The Fountain Room is the luxurious reception room of the Norman rulers, configured in the form of a Persian-style iwan. It projects outwards, in ideal connection with the surrounding park and in axis with the main entrance in a predominant position compared to the other rooms. It takes the form of a...

The fornix is a large arched opening, typical of Roman triumphal arches, which usually have one or three arches. The fornix is also found in doors and aqueducts....

From the Latin porticus, meaning door, the portico is a space located outside or on the ground floor of a building and is set up as an open gallery. The roof of the portico is supported by a series of columns or pilasters. Mostly used by the Greeks and Romans in religious and civil buildings, it bec...

William II was called the Good, unlike his father who was called the Bad. Born in Palermo in 1153, he assumed the throne at the age of 12 after the death of William I, protected by his mother Margaret of Navarre. Crowned in 1171, he became of age and devoted himself to strengthening relations with t...

In the entrance arch to the hall of the Zisa fountain, there is the following inscription in Naskhi characters: "As often as thou wilt, thou shalt see the most beautiful possession of the most splendid of the kingdoms of the world: the seas and the mountain that dominates them, whose peaks are tinge...

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 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 Chapel of the Holy Trinity at the Zisa is a Norman building that functioned as a palatine chapel since it is located just north of the palace. There was probably an earlier nucleus of Byzantine and then Arab ancestry. It was William I, known as William the Bad, and later his son and successor Wi...

The current Zisa Park was inaugurated in 2005 and extends in front of the palace. The garden is rectangular in shape and is, on the inside, divided by a white marble channel connecting the water tanks. The latter are in axis with the palace and extend from the fountain room, creating an evocative im...

From Arabic to quadus, the catusi take the form of a network of pressurised clay pipes. According to al-Muqaddasi writing in the 10th century, the city of Palermo was surrounded by terracotta catusates that brought drinking water into the city....