All the monuments in Palermo
The landmarks and masterpieces worth planning a day around.
Cattedrale di PalermoPalermo CathedralArab-Norman architecture, royal porphyry tombs, rooftop walkways, Catalan Gothic porchPalermo's cathedral compresses eight centuries of Sicilian rule into one building. Archbishop Walter of the Mill began it in 1185 on the site of a mosque, and later builders added a Catalan Gothic porch and columns recycled from the mosque, still carved with Arabic inscriptions, before Ferdinando Fuga capped it with a Neoclassical dome in the 1780s that never quite matches the rest. Four royal sarcophagi in red porphyry hold Roger II, Henry VI, Constance of Aragon, and Frederick II, the Holy Roman Emperor who called Palermo home. Climb the rooftop walkway among the domes and you cross eight centuries of masonry at eye level, with the city's rooftops spread out below and Monte Pellegrino on the horizon.Plan the visit
TheatreTeatro MassimoItaly's largest opera house, celebrated acoustics, Godfather Part III staircase, 1897 belle epoque designGiovan Battista Basile designed what's often called Europe's third-largest opera house, after Paris and Vienna, to crown Palermo's belle epoque ambitions, and construction dragged on for 22 years before it opened in 1897, a saga so contentious that Basile died midway and his son Ernesto finished the job. The auditorium's ring of tiered boxes seats nearly 1,400 and was engineered for an acoustic clarity still praised by visiting singers and conductors today. Its grand staircase, framed by two bronze lion fountains, became instantly recognizable worldwide after Francis Ford Coppola filmed the closing opera-house scene of The Godfather Part III on its steps. The theater then closed for 23 years of restoration starting in 1974 and didn't reopen until 1997, a delay Sicilians still joke about.
Cappella PalatinaPalatine ChapelByzantine gold mosaics, Arab muqarnas ceiling, Christ Pantocrator apse, Norman royal chapelRoger II, the Norman king who unified Sicily, commissioned this private chapel in 1132 as a statement of the multicultural kingdom he'd built: Byzantine mosaicists laid gold-ground scenes of Christ and the saints, Arab craftsmen carved and painted the wooden muqarnas ceiling with scenes of courtly life and mythical beasts (the only Fatimid-style ceiling of its kind to survive largely intact), and the floor plan itself follows Latin basilica tradition. Nowhere else in the medieval world did these three traditions share one room so completely, or so harmoniously. The mosaic program, added over decades, climaxes in the apse, where a severe, staring Christ Pantocrator looks down the length of the nave. Bring small binoculars if you have them: the ceiling's painted details, thirty feet up, are otherwise hard to make out.
SquareQuattro CantiBaroque octagonal crossroads, seasonal fountains, Spanish kings, Teatro del SolePiazza Vigliena, better known as the Quattro Canti, is the crossroads where Palermo’s two main streets, Via Maqueda and Corso Vittorio Emanuele, meet. It was laid out between 1608 and 1620 under the Spanish viceroys, to a design by Giulio Lasso and Mariano Smiriglio, and it splits the old city into its four quarters. Four concave Baroque facades face each other across an octagon, each with three tiers: a fountain of one of the seasons at street level, a Spanish king of Sicily above (Charles V, Philip II, III and IV) and, at the top, a patron saint of the city: Christina, Ninfa, Olivia or Agata. Palermitans call it the Teatro del Sole, because at any hour one facade catches the sun.
Tours worth booking in Palermo
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More within reach
Monuments a day trip away, elsewhere in Sicily.
CataniaUNESCOMount EtnaEurope's tallest active volcano, summit craters, the Etna cable car, lava slopes, Etna wine country
StromboliUNESCOStromboliContinuous eruptions, the Sciara del Fuoco lava scar, night boat tours, licensed volcano guides
ModicaModicaTwo-level Baroque town, Duomo di San Giorgio's staircase, cold-worked Aztec-style chocolate
EriceEriceThe Norman Venus Castle, cloud-wrapped medieval lanes, the cable car from Trapani, almond pastries
LipariLipariThe walled acropolis, the Aeolian Archaeological Museum, white pumice beaches, black obsidian flows
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CastelvetranoSelinunteTemple E and Temple G, acropolis over the dunes, Malophoros sanctuary, one of Europe's largest archaeological parks
AgrigentoValley of the TemplesTemple of Concordia, ridge of Doric temples, Temple of Olympian Zeus telamon, almond blossom season