Tag: arab norman
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Arab-Norman Design: Give Credit Where Credit is Due
Feeling somewhat like a miniature of a basilica 3 or 4 times as large as it is, the 32 meter long Cappella Palatina inside Palermo’s Royal Palace (Palazzo dei Normanni) is, simply put, spectacular. As soon as you enter, you’ll become lost in the dozens of stories depicted by dizzying mosaic scenes. Constructed between 1132…
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Persia in Palermo
Illustrating the Persian-Middle Eastern influences on Arab-Norman architecture, the mosaic designs of the Sala di Re Ruggero (King Roger’s Salon) inside Palermo’s Royal Palace (Palazzo dei Normanni) are splendid. Unlike their siblings in the Cappella Palatina (just downstairs in the palace), these mosaic designs are secular in nature, depicting hunting and natural scenes featuring trees,…
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The Royal Palace of Palermo
The Royal Palace in Palermo, better known as il Palazzo dei Normanni, is today the seat of Sicily’s regional parliament. However, since the middle of the 16th century, it was the seat of the Spanish viceroys and then the Bourbons who built it to its (more or less) current state. Its hodgepodge of architectural styles…
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The Admiral’s Seven Arches Bridge
This seven-arched bridge once crossed the Oreto River (now dried up or relegated to flow underground) on the south-east side of Palermo’s historic center. Known as the Ponte dell’Ammiraglio, or Admiral’s Bridge, it was built in 1113 by Roger II’s emir of emirs, George of Antioch. Today, this wonder of Arab-Norman architecture sits in a…
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Photo of Photos in La Vucciria
Old photos of some of Sicily’s Arab-Norman gems (middle left: Cefalù’s cathedral; lower right: Chiesa San Cataldo) photographed in Palermo’s Vucciria Market.
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Dizzying Steps
Norman king Roger II established the Cappella Palatina in 1130. The chapel, located inside Palermo’s Palazzo dei Normanni, is in and of itself a treasure chest of extraordinary mosaics. This is one example, the dizzying, inlaid stone and marble floors.
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Conservationists at Work
Conservationists photographed while working in the cloisters of the Cathedral at Monreale. Each of the 228 columns of the cloister are unique, and their restoration requires painstaking detail in order to maintain the integrity of the designs from the early 1200s when the peaceful, square colonnade was constructed.
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About 885 Years Old
King Roger II commissioned Palermo’s San Giovanni degli Eremiti (Saint John of the Hermits) in 1130. Completed in 1148, its red domes rise above a garden of citrus trees, roses, fichi d’india, and jasmine that was once flanked the city’s ancient Kemonia River. There is evidence that on its site was once a pagan building,…
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San Cataldo: Keeping it Simple
Palermo’s San Cataldo church in Piazza Bellini possesses three remarkable red domes on the outside, yet on the inside, those domes illuminate an elegant, simply designed stone chapel. In contrast to its sister church La Martorana, San Cataldo, which was built around 1160, has never possessed mosaics or other such decoration.