Cattedrale di Palermo - 4 Things to Know Before Visiting

The Norman Palace, also known as the Royal Palace, is located in Palermo and is currently the seat of the Sicilian Regional Assembly. The palace is the oldest royal residence in Europe, home to the kings of the Kingdom of Sicily, the imperial seat with Frederick II and Conrad IV and the historic Sicilian Parliament. On the first floor of the building stands the Palatine Chapel. The west wing is assigned to the Italian Army. It is one of the most visited monuments on the island.

The Palatine Chapel is the royal chapel of the Norman palace in Palermo, Sicily. This building is a mixture of Byzantine, Norman, and Fatimid architectural styles, showing the tricultural state of Sicily during the 12th century after Roger II's father and uncle conquered the island. Also referred to as a Palace church or Palace chapel, it was commissioned by Roger II of Sicily in 1132 to be built upon an older chapel constructed around 1080.

Quattro Canti is the name of an octagonal square at the intersection of the two main roads in Palermo: Via Maqueda and Cassaro, today Via Vittorio Emanuele, about half of their length. The piazza is octagonal, four sides being the streets; the remaining four sides are Baroque buildings, the near-identical facades of which contain fountains with statues of the four seasons, the four Spanish kings of Sicily, and of the patronesses of Palermo.

The Pretoria fountain was built in 1554 by Francesco Camilliani in Florence, but in 1581 it was moved to Piazza Pretoria in Palermo. Initially placed in the garden of the Florentine palace of the brother of the Grand Duchess Eleonora of Toledo, thanks to the intervention of her brother Don Garçia, the first viceroy of Sicily and governor of Palermo, it was put up for sale for the Senate of Palermo. Purchased from the rich city of Palermo, then dismantled and shipped, twenty years later, to Paler

The church of San Giovanni Degli Eremiti is a national monument located in the historic center of Palermo, near the Norman Palace. The church is built according to the canons of Sicilian-Norman architecture; it is a Romanesque church and externally resembles oriental buildings. This reference to the East is even more emphasized by the bright red domes, restored in the nineteenth century by the architect Giuseppe Patricolo, according to an interpretation of the original color based on ancient tr

Piazza Pretoria, also known as Piazza Della Vergogna, is located on the edge of the Kalsa district, near the corner of Cassaro with Via Maqueda, a few meters from the Quattro Canti, the exact center of the historic city of Palermo. At the center of the square is the Pretoria Fountain, the work of Francesco Camilliani built-in 1554, which, occupying a large part of its extension, strongly characterizes the Piano Pretorio. It was one of the iconic places in this area and it attracts a lot of tou