UNESCO Heritage

The cathedral is made up of various architectural styles from the different groups of people that have lived in Palermo. There are, for example, the wonderful fusing of Byzantine, Islamic and Latin elements, which have enabled the cathedral to become UNESCO heritage along with the Duomo in Monreale and Cefalù, the Palatine Chapel, the Palazzo Reale, the Church of S. Giovanni degli Eremiti, the Church of Martorana, the Church of S. Cataldo, the Ammiraglio Bridge and the Palazzo della Zisa.

Palermo Cathedral is, in any case, a wonderful treasure trove that also holds the Diocesan Museum within it, and the Chapel with the relics of the patron saint of the city, Saint Rosalia, brought there from Monte Pellegrino. There are also the graves of the kings that once ruled the city.

History

The Cathedral’s history is long, and starts in the 4th century. When the Arabs conquered Palermo, they turned it into a mosque one hundred years later. Between the 7th and 8th century, the Norman Archibishop Gualtiero Offamilio really wanted to rebuild it as a stronghold for Christianity. Since then, it has undergone various restorations by the Spaniards, and particularly the Bourbons.

Architecture

The Latin cross plan presents a structure of ten pointed arches, supported by groups of four columns each (made of Egyptian granite), which came from constructions in the classical era for each of the sides of the main naves. There is also a group of double columns at the two ends.

Aligned with the central nave is the greater gate, and the minor naves were the two side gates, open like the first one in the eastern wall, on the old “discesa della Madre Chiesa”, what is today known as via Matteo Bonello. A further two points of access to the church were open in the wall, one halfway round and the other to the north. The three pointed archways, with their Arabic style, flanked by two side towers, are overhung by a large gable roof, framed by a decorative side of sculpted aspects that form animals in movement, plant figures and the anthropomorphic “tree of life”.

At the entrance, there are low reliefs of great historical importance, which celebrate the coronation of Victor Amedeus II of Sardinia, and the other of Carlos III of the House of Bourbon, both of which happened in Palermo’s Duomo. In 1466, Archbishop Nicola Puxades enriched the Duom with a beautiful wood carved choir made from 78 magnificent choral stalls, in Gothic-Catalan style.

Did you know?

Two of the statues that surround the entrance to the Cathedral depict Saint Rosalia, the patron saint of Palermo, and Saint Agatha, the patron saint of Catania. From a football point of view, the two cities have been rivals for years, but few know that the patron saint of Catania belonged to Palermo’s patron saints’ quadriga. http://www.cattedrale.palermo.it

More information here.

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