Palermo Cathedral
St. Mary Magdalene

The Chapel of St. Mary Magdalene

The southern front of the Cathedral is the most articulated part of the sacred building. Its imposing bulk can be appreciated from the front floor, which includes the entire volume.The church underwent various modifications over the centuries and this part lent itself well to subsequent extensions, thanks to the open space in front of it, which allowed the addition of external volumes.
During the transformation works carried out at the end of the 18th century, a number of structures were built on this front, added to the right side aisle, enlarging and modifying the chapels that had previously existed with the creation of the Beneficiali Sacristy.These changes resulted in a new alignment of the outer walls, incorporating the western side of the former Sacristy of the Canons. As early as the 16th century, it was concealed on its eastern front, where a building was constructed to house the Cathedral's treasury . The Sacristy of the Canons features its southern elevation, the only one visible today, composed of two distinct parts. The basement area is attributable to a medieval architectural building, characterised by a cornice, which was the terminal cymatium of the original building, decorated with blind trefoil arches , interspersed with antefixes with anthropomorphic representations and hanging nail columns. The upper part comes from a 15th-century Gothic elevation , the facing of which is enlivened by a series of single-lancet windows with an alternating open-closed rhythm, with recessed pointed arches and rich floral decoration carved into the wall face. Historical reconstruction and architectural analysis can lead to this building being identified, in its basement part, with the ancient Chapel of St. Mary Magdalene.

A cloister of accentuated stylistic variety

The Cathedral over the centuries

The dialogue between the architectures of the monumental complex

Porphyry sarcophagi: royalty and power

The side aisles

A remarkable ceiling

The chorus: beating heart of the cathedral

The southern portico

A space between the visible and the invisible

Cefalù: settlement evidence through time

The chapel of St. Benedict

Roger II’s strategic design

Roger II of hauteville: a sovereign protected by God

The beginning of the construction site

The Great Restoration

The columns of the nave: the meticulous study of the overall order

The king’s mark

Transformations over the centuries

The cultural substrate through time

The chystro: a place between earth and sky

The construction of Monreale Cathedral: between myth and history

The chapel of san Castrense: an important renaissance work

The transformations of the hall through the centuries

The links between the hauteville family and the monastic orders in Sicily

Squaring the circle

Layers of different cultures decorate the external apses

From the Mosque to the Cathedral

The Bible carved in stone

Palermo: the happiest city

The Virgin Hodegetria

The lost chapel

The rediscovered chapel

The original design

The marble portal: an intimate dialogue between complex ornamental aspects and formal structure

Interior decorations

The mosaics of the presbytery

A mixture of styles pervades the floor decorations

The plasticism of the main portico and Bonanno Pisano’s Monumental Bronze Door

The medieval city amidst monasticism and feudal aristocracy

Mosaic decoration

The towers and the western facade

The stone bible

A polysemy of high-level artistic forms and content

A compositional design that combines nordic examples with new artistic languages, over the centuries

The area of the Sanctuary

The chapel of the crucifix: an artistic casket based on a previous model

Tempus fugit: a strategic project implemented in a short period of time

Beyond the harmony of proportions

Ecclesia munita

The longest aisle

A tree full of life

The paradisiacal “Conca d’oro” that embraces Palermo: a name with countless faces through time

Under the crosses of the Bema

The Gualtiero Cathedral

A new Cathedral

The towers facing the facade used as bell towers

From the main gate to the aisles: an invitation to a journey of faith

Worship services

The Kings’ Cathedrals

The Cefalù cathedral: a construction yard undergoing a change between a surge of faith and control over the territory

A chapel by an unknown designer based on repeated symmetries

Norman religious architecture with islamic influences in Sicily

The mosaics of the apses

The Chapel of St. Mary Magdalene

Biblical themes enlivened by the dazzling light of the stained – glass windows overlooking the naves

The Chapel of the Kings

A Northern population

The liturgical spaces of the protesis and the diaconicon

The side Portico: a combination of elegance and lightness of form

The balance between architecture and light

The Great Presbytery: a unique space for the cathedral

Gardens and architecture as a backdrop to the city of Palermo

Survey of the royal tombs

Two initially similar towers, varied over time

The senses tell Context 1

Characteristics of religious architecture in the romanesque period

Thirteenth-century iconography decorates the nave’s wooden ceiling, designed with new solutions

Artistic elements in Peter’s ship

The cemetery of kings

A palimpsest of history

The architectural modifications ti the cathedral building after the death of Roger II and the transformations of the cloister

The decorated facade

A controversial interpretation