Palermo Cathedral

Palermo Cathedral is the cathedral church of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Palermo, located in Palermo, Sicily, southern Italy. It has a strong oriental style, mainly due to its interior courtyard filled with palm trees.

It has a Latin cross layout, with three naves divided by columns. Inside, there are several chapels, including the Sacrament Chapel, decorated with precious stones and lapis lazuli, and the Santa Rosalia Chapel, which houses a statue of Palermo's patron saint.

Overview

The west entrance of the cathedral, built in the 14th–15th centuries, is on Via Matteo Bonello. It has two towers, a Gothic portal, and a 15th-century Madonna statue. Arches connect it to the bell tower, part of the Archbishop’s Palace (now the Diocesan Museum).

The south side has turrets and a large Gothic-Catalan portico with three arches, built around 1465. One old column has a Qur’an verse, showing it was once a mosque. The carved portal was made between 1426–1430, and the wooden doors in 1432. There's a 13th-century Madonna mosaic and two 18th-century monuments to kings crowned there.

The apse area, with decorated walls and towers, is from the original 12th-century church. The left side is more modern, with a 16th-century portal by Antonello Gagini. The southwest façade is also from the 14th–15th centuries.

History

Palermo Cathedral was built in 1185 by Walter Ophamil, a Norman archbishop and minister to King William II, on the site of an old Byzantine church. That earlier church was founded by Pope Gregory I and later turned into a mosque by the Arabs in the 9th century. Ophamil is buried in the cathedral’s crypt. The original structure had three apses.

The corner towers were finished between the 14th and 15th centuries, and a southern porch was added during the Renaissance. The current neoclassical style comes from renovations done between 1781 and 1801, led by Ferdinando Fuga and Giuseppe Venanzio Marvuglia. During this time, a large altarpiece by Gagini was destroyed, and its sculptures were moved throughout the cathedral. Fuga also built the main dome and the smaller domes over the side aisles.
References

Category:Roman Catholic cathedrals
Category:Cathedrals in Italy
Category:Palermo
Category:12th-century buildings and structures