History
Monreale and Palermo, the Norman kings' golden mosaics
In the twelfth century, Norman kings in Sicily hired Byzantine mosaicists and Arab craftsmen to decorate their churches. The result, in Palermo and on the hill at Monreale, is a blaze of gold that still stops visitors in their tracks.
By Walter Pellow2 November 20264 min read
Step out of the sunshine into the cathedral at Monreale and it takes a moment for your eyes to adjust. Then the walls appear, and they are gold. Nearly every surface of the nave, the aisles and the apse, more than six thousand square metres of it, is covered in mosaic: hundreds of scenes from the Old and New Testaments, saints and angels and prophets, set against a background of gold glass that catches whatever light comes in. At the far end, filling the curve of the apse, a vast half-figure of Christ looks down with one hand raised in blessing.
It was built for a king, William II of Sicily, who began it in 1174 on the hillside above Palermo, and it was meant to impress. It still does.
Normans, Greeks and Arabs
How it came to be made is one of the more remarkable stories of medieval Europe. In the eleventh century, Norman adventurers from northern France, younger sons with swords and ambition, carved out territories in southern Italy, and in the second half of the century they took Sicily from its Arab rulers; Palermo fell to them in 1072. In 1130 Roger II was crowned King of Sicily, and his kingdom grew rich.
The Normans were few, and they ruled an island of Greeks, Arabs and Latins. They did the sensible thing: they used everyone. Their administration worked in Latin, Greek and Arabic, and their buildings drew on all three traditions. The architecture borrowed the domes and pointed arches of Islamic Sicily; the mosaics were made by craftsmen trained in the Byzantine tradition, or by local workshops who learned from them; the wooden ceilings were carved and painted in the Islamic manner. The style is now called Arab-Norman, and in 2015 a group of these buildings in Palermo, with the cathedrals of Cefalù and Monreale, became a World Heritage Site.
Every surface is covered in mosaic, set against a background of gold glass that catches whatever light comes in.
Palermo's chapels
In Palermo itself, the jewel is the Palatine Chapel, the royal chapel inside the Norman palace, which Roger II built and which was consecrated in 1140. It is far smaller than Monreale and, to many people, even finer. The mosaics cover the walls and domes, and above the nave is a wooden ceiling of muqarnas, the honeycomb vaulting of the Islamic world, painted with scenes of court life: dancers, musicians, drinkers and hunters. It is a ceiling worthy of a palace of the caliphs, over a Christian church.
Close by, the church known as the Martorana was founded by Roger's admiral, George of Antioch, and its mosaics include a portrait of Roger himself receiving his crown directly from Christ, a political statement as much as a devotional one. Palermo's cathedral, much altered over the centuries, holds the tombs of Roger II and other kings of the line.
Monreale and Cefalù
Monreale stands on the slopes above the plain called the Conca d'Oro, the golden shell, which runs down to Palermo and the sea. Beside the cathedral is its cloister, a square of pointed arches resting on pairs of slender columns, many of them inlaid with mosaic or carved in spirals and chevrons, each capital different, around a garden with a fountain in one corner. After the gold of the church, its calm is a relief.
Along the coast to the east, Cefalù's cathedral was begun by Roger II in 1131, a fortress of a church below a great rock, with a Christ in its apse that rivals Monreale's.
Tours that go there
All three of these tours visit both Palermo and Monreale, and Cefalù too. Explore's seven-night Classical Sicily covers the island, from Syracuse and Ortygia, Piazza Armerina and the Villa Romana del Casale, and Agrigento, to Trapani and Erice, Palermo, Monreale and Cefalù, with Giardini Naxos and Mount Etna on the east coast. Its departure months are March, April, May, June, August, September, October and November.
Travelsphere's seven-night The Best of Sicily takes in Catania, Mount Etna and Taormina, the Villa Romana del Casale, Campofelice di Roccella, Agrigento, Palermo, Monreale and Cefalù.
Just You's seven-night Discover Sicily, for solo travellers, covers Catania, Taormina and Letojanni, Piazza Armerina, Palermo, Monreale, Campofelice di Roccella and Cefalù.
If you can, see the Palatine Chapel first and Monreale second. The chapel is the jewel box; Monreale is the treasury. Both are worth their queues.
By Walter Pellow, the name Atlas & Passage’s editorial team writes under. Prices and dates in the trips below come from the operators and can change.
