If the 68,000 square feet of mosaic tiles on the walls of Monreale Cathedral don’t mesmerize you, perhaps the floor-designs will! Created by Byzantine-Arab-Norman craftsmen in the late 12th century, William II’s temple offers endless inspiration. The red stone is called red porphyry. The ancient emperors associated it with power during the Roman Empire. It…
Tag: Byzantine mosaic
I Want to Eat Dinner with Roger II
After reading Sicily: Three Thousand Years of Human History by Sandra Benjamin, I became intrigued with Roger II, who was King of Sicily during the Norman period. The Normans, a people who descended from northern French, Norse, northern German, and Viking tribes, ruled Sicily for most of the 11th and 12th centuries. As Benjamin explains…