Palermo, the capital of the Sicily region, is a beautiful city located at the exact center of the Mediterranean. A wonderful city that amazes with its variety of art, history, culture and religion all of which, united by an invisible thread, blend together in diversity. When in Palermo, within a few meters, you pass from the majesty and opulence of the Teatro Massimo to the ramshackle alleys of the Cape, also when you enter the ancient Vucciria market, you will notice that around the corner rises the splendid Renaissance Pretoria fountain.
The Martorana, also Co-Cathedral of St. Mary of the Admiral church, is characterized by wonderful Byzantine interiors. A stunning church with incredible decorations is definitely one of the most important historical monuments of Palermo. The original church had a cross-inscribed base dome on an octagonal drum supported by four columns connected by moderately pointed arches, arms covered with barrel vaults and square angular spans.
The church of San Cataldo (built in 1160) represents an architectural masterpiece, a notable example of formal syncretic elaboration conceived by Islamic masters in accordance with Western-Romanesque style. It was a chapel in a complex of buildings that have been destroyed, which belonged to Maione da Bari, Grand Chancellor and later Grand Admiral of the kingdom under King William I (from 1154 to 1160).
Church San Giovanni degli Eremiti or the church of St. John of the Hermits was built in the 6th century. It has a fixed cross base and a compact and regular volume, which is counterpointed, at different heights, by red plastered domes on the outside. Outside, the building is characterized by regular stereometry of the wall structure, formed by square limestone ashlars that contrast to the lively red coloring of the domes, raised on cylindrical drums with angular horns and arched three-recessed rings.
The Zisa Palace (the name comes from the Arabic word al-Azīz which means “the splendid”) is a castle located outside the walls of the ancient town of Palermo and inside Genoardo (from the Arabic word Jannat al-ar or “garden or paradise on the earth”) – where it is the most important and representative monument. With its building peculiarities and its crystalline forms, Zisa Palace is the best preserved model of the Arab-Norman architecture.
